Chapter 3: Structures of the Associationist and Common ...
Transcript of Chapter 3: Structures of the Associationist and Common ...
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Chapter 3: Structures of the Associationist and Common Sense Traditions
Chapter 2 established the basic shape of a fairly complex analytical apparatus that
can be used to talk about issues surrounding the study of mind in eighteenth and
nineteenth century Britain. In that discussion, I introduced an array of tools that have
been developed in STS and related fields to characterize scientific and philosophical
work. These include notions of paradigms, game-structures, intellectual networks,
boundary-work, and historical problematics, among others. As I have demonstrated,
these various proposals for structuring an historical narrative are all contestable and, at
one level or another, problematic. Nonetheless, one must begin somewhere. In
questioning that set of historiographic frameworks, I think a path forward has begun to
emerge. If we take seriously the questions that these frameworks pose, and the tools that
they offer, we can make a substantive first pass through the history of British studies of
the mind in the nineteenth century.
Still, it should be understood that the answers that will emerge are the product of a
particular analytical machine. The previous chapter has provided a rough language for
talking about the development of intellectual work, and in what follows I will use this
language as among friends, with all the usual caveats. When I interject terms like
‘paradigm’ into the discussion, it is with the full ugly connotation of the last chapter –
where the many facets of the term are held up to the light.1 But analytical terms are only
part of the battle. Producing answers to the kinds of questions posed in my
historiographic development – about ‘what is science?’ and ‘what is philosophy?’ for
example – requires a special set of tools. At the end of chapter 2, I proposed a four-fold
structural analysis that would juxtapose information about the concepts, texts, referential
icons, and personal associations of the figures in my history. I will discuss the
relationships among these structural features at greater length below. What is important
to keep in mind from the outset is that this chapter will serve as a test of the value of this
1 This is one alternative to trying to fashion a new analytical terminology from wholecloth. Such an attempt would require an extended effort, would be premature withoutevaluation of the current terms, and would suffer from lack of familiarity – even if notgenerating charges of obscurity from readers versed in the current idiom. I consider thatmy solution here – to embrace the sophisticated sense of the existing language – is thelesser of two evils. I will reevaluate this decision in my conclusions.
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set of tools and of their success in answering questions within the chosen historiographic
framework. I do not pretend that this analysis will be definitive. Instead, I hope that it
will resolve or clarify some of the questions posed within fairly established frameworks,
and perhaps help pose new better questions to ask about the matter at hand.
This chapter, then, will explore a circumscribed body of intellectual work
regarding the human mind that was produced in early and mid nineteenth century Britain.
The specific focus will be on the work of four authors – Thomas Brown, James Mill, Sir
William Hamilton, and Alexander Bain – as represented in their salient texts –
respectively, Brown’s Sketch of a System of the Human Mind [1820], Mill’s Analysis of
the Phenomena of the Human Mind [1829], Hamilton’s Lectures on Metaphysics and
Logic [1844], and Bain’s The Senses and the Intellect [1855] and The Emotions and the
Will [1859].
The primary object of this survey is to show how this work built upon earlier
traditions developed in the mid-eighteenth century and attributable to David Hume,
David Hartley, and Thomas Reid. These figures each codified a distinct vision of the
study of the mind, and the interplay among these three traditions fueled a century of
subsequent inquiry in Britain. Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature [1739/1740], Hartley’s
Observations on Man, his Frame, his Duty, and his Expectations [1748], and Reid’s An
Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense [1764] (along with his
two major later works, the Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man [1785] and Essays
on the Active Powers of Man [1788]) form a kind of tri-cornered foundation for the
subsequent activities of Brown, Mill, Hamilton, and Bain. It is the main burden of this
chapter to demonstrate the character of this relationship.
However, to understand work on the human mind in nineteenth century Britain
more fully, it will be important to take up a number of other issues that cannot be
captured by a simple comparison of the intellectual systems conveyed in a set of texts.
The evolution of a community of thought, as argued in the previous chapter, is a complex
and multifaceted process. First, the propagation of intellectual traditions can be regarded
as involving systems of concepts (as expressed linguistically) defining the terms in which
the matter at hand is to be addressed. The same topic (here, the human mind) can be
discussed using a variety of designating terms, connected in various fashions, and with
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variable understandings of the scope and domain of the problem at hand. The resulting
systems generated within a particular community of discussion can be regarded as a
family of related game-structures, where the framework of concepts represents the space
of allowed intellectual moves, the map of the space within which discourse on a subject
occurs.
Second, it must be recognized that (at least in the case at hand here) these
conceptual systems are elaborated within texts. The set of concepts that define a
particular thinker’s understanding of the human mind reside within, but are not
isomorphous with, the text. The same conceptual system can be given alternate
presentations within different literary works. Conversely, the same order, style, and
manner of textual presentation can be utilized to convey fundamentally divergent
concepts. This disjunction between concepts and their presentation has broad
significance for the study of intellectual traditions. The conceptual system forms a
fundamental unit of comparison between different thinkers on the same subject, in the
sense that congruent conceptual systems represent basic similarities in intellectual
approach. If conceptual systems are maps of a (proposed) space of discourse, the
reproduction of similar systems over time can be viewed as the maintenance of a
tradition, the propagation of a paradigm in one sense of the word. In other words, a
stable conceptual system is, if not the defining aspect of ‘normality’ within an intellectual
domain, at least a necessary condition for the existence of such normality. However, the
vehicles for the propagation of an intellectual tradition are texts.2 These texts serve a
distinct function as exemplary objects within such traditions; in Kuhnian terms, the text-
as-exemplar itself plays an important role in an intellectual paradigm. This role is partly
2 To head off any immediate objections about the scope of this claim, I would emphasizethat I am using the term ‘text’ in a technical semiotic sense that includes but exceeds itsdenotation as ‘book.’ A text in my sense is a particular encoding. Homer’s Odyssey inits original oral form, Hume’s Treatise, the film Last Tango in Paris, and today’sVirginia Tech webpage (www.vt.edu) are all equally texts in this sense, although clearlyof highly variable utility as vehicles for the propagation of intellectual traditions (mysentence does not read “Texts are vehicles for the propagation of intellectual traditions”).It does so happen that the texts under consideration herein are all books, and booksspecifically intended to serve a role in maintaining or establishing intellectual traditions,so the problems of general semiotics can be ignored here in favor of the somewhat moremodest task of reading and interpreting books.
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symbolic and partly practical. Certain texts take on special positions in a given tradition,
perhaps by virtue of the concepts they convey but also possibly because of their rhetorical
power, their mode of presentation, or their association with particular contexts. More
functionally, in their role as transmission mechanisms, intellectual texts encapsulate
conceptual systems and organize them in a fashion that can be appreciated by an
audience. This audience may be broadly construed or highly specific, and the form of the
text will tend to follow its function in that regard. Thus, an attention to the structure of
exposition of a text can reveal aspects of an intellectual tradition distinct from, though
related to, the concepts that the texts contain.
Third, and relatedly, we must recognize that the existence of an intellectual
tradition is at least in part an attributive phenomenon. That is, an intellectual heritage is
something that is claimed. We saw in the previous chapter that one possible method of
distinguishing science from philosophy was to identify disparities between their attitude
to past work, with science perhaps being essentially presentist (according to Kuhn) and
philosophy being instead referential to a founding past (identified by Macintyre in
Platonism).3 On this model, then, science obscures its established past and philosophy
revels in it. Such practices should be evident in texts. One fairly clean way to identify
structural conventions of this type is to examine patterns of reference to previous work.
In particular, explicit allusion in texts to salient figures in a particular field constructs a
network of icons. This iconic structure can serve as a guide to the acknowledged history
of the field: Acknowledgement of important actors in a given area (whether to appeal to
their authority, to set them up as a straw man, or something in between) indicates fairly
directly whose work the author finds worth consideration by his audience. Conversely,
the absence of such acknowledgement shows what can either be taken for granted or
simply ignored. Of course, the character of the acknowledgment matters; to gain a proper
perspective on the relevance of a citation, we must consider whether it is positive or
negative, in what regard it is utilized, and what the substance of the attribution itself is.
Fully analyzing the absence of acknowledgement can be an equally complex task, since –
3 Macintyre is by no means the first to advance this view of philosophy’s fundamentalorientation. We might recall also Whitehead’s claim that “all philosophy consists offootnotes to Plato.”
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for example – an implicit allusion looks, on paper, much like an assumption of
irrelevance (though in one case the silence roars and in the other it holds its tongue). As
a first pass, though, we can reserve these subtleties in favor of a fairly neutral survey of
practice. A simple mapping of the iconic structure of a given text does not resolve all of
the issues surrounding the character of a given tradition, but there is no reason that we
should expect it to. In conjunction with other structural features of a work, it can
nonetheless be informative.
Perhaps the closest comparisons can be made between these iconic elements and a
fourth structural facet, that of the network of personal affiliations in which a given author
is enmeshed. In distinguishing the two as, respectively, iconic structure and genealogical
structure, I am trying to filter the sociological depiction of philosophical activity
provided by Randall Collins. Collins [1998] analyzes the position of different thinkers in
terms of their interconnections within an intellectual subclass. My primary concern is
that Collins does not clearly distinguish between actual personal relationships and
scholarly heritage. This is not a matter of one type of relationship being more
fundamental or influential than another. It could be argued, for example, that the
influence of Aristotle on the late Scholastics of the seventeenth century was more
important than the influence of their schoolmasters in the Jesuit academies (the reverse
can be argued as well). Or, we might consider that Newton’s influence on Hume was
stronger than that of Hume’s Newtonian professors in the Rankenian Club (or not). What
is important is that the two interactions are of fundamentally different orders: On the one
hand, we have concrete social relationships, based on identities as student or teacher,
colleague or correspondent. These are what I will call the genealogical structure in which
a particular author finds himself. On the other, we have relationships that – however
influential – are fictive, maintained through the kind of acknowledged intellectual
indebtedness that is captured in part by iconic structure. In order for a discipline or (more
generally) an intellectual pursuit to persist in a given social milieu, a genealogical
structure is necessary. For a tradition to be propagated, one must teach and be taught,
and one must have a community of discussion. Iconic structure, by contrast, is elective;
one can choose to recognize an intellectual lineage or not (the latter pattern being,
according to Kuhn’s research, characteristic of much modern science). Indeed the
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contrast between these two orders can provide one means of assessing the patterns
characteristic of particular traditions. Thus, by itself, genealogical structure shows the
direct mechanisms of transmission of a discipline. In conjunction with iconic structure, it
reveals broader patterns of influence.
Indeed, all four of these identified levels of structure interact significantly. As a
group, they focus attention along an axis running from the social embeddedness of texts
to the textual encapsulation of concepts through social dialogue. I will use these four
aspects of intellectual tradition to focus my analysis of the propagation of work on the
human mind in nineteenth century Britain. I do not maintain that these exhaust the
possible levels of structure that may be significant in this regard. Even less do I exclude
non-structural influences, such as the stark contingency of historical facts. However, to
pursue the sorts of questions regarding the development of intellectual institutions and
specialties that were posed in the previous chapter, I think these provide a reasonable
start.
The following sections will address in succession, and relative isolation, each of
the four structural aspects I have outlined – conceptual, expository, iconic, and
genealogical. In each case, I will begin by elaborating the patterns evident in the
eighteenth century work of Hume, Hartley, and Reid. I will then examine the
propagation of these traditional forms in the nineteenth century elaborations of Brown,
Mill, Hamilton, and Bain. The first three levels of structure can be extracted, in large
part, from the primary texts already identified. In some cases, a full elaboration of the
conceptual structures being deployed by these authors will require consultation of their
other works; this is especially the case for Reid – whose Inquiry only hints at the full
scope of his system as later developed in the two volumes of Essays describing
intellectual and active powers – and Brown – whose Sketch remained incomplete upon
his death but which closely mirrors the system already established in his Lectures from
the University of Edinburgh. Also, differences in expository and iconic structure among
such parallel depictions of each author’s system in different texts will be an interesting
secondary concern. Genealogical structure cannot be obtained from within the texts at
all, but instead requires biographical detail available in secondary sources (and, in some
cases, the authors’ own memoirs).
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Having considered these various isolable aspects of the progress of British studies
of the mind, we will be able to take a step back and see what they amount to as a whole.
In the final section of this chapter, I will show how these four strands reflect upon the
theoretical frameworks for the study of science and philosophy in Chapter 2.4 In this
endeavor, resonances among the various structures will be of great interest in identifying
patterns of change in practice. Also, since none of the methodologies examined in the
previous chapter incorporate all of the aspects I am considering, the case at hand in this
chapter provides the opportunity to assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of
existing prescriptions for the study of science and philosophy, and the prospect of a
synthesis that may avoid some of the individual pitfalls of these methods.
It should be emphasized here that the critical analysis of intellectual structures in
which I am engaged does not fall comfortably into established modes of interpreting
work on the philosophy or science of mind (or science and philosophy more generally).
At the risk of gross oversimplification, the distinction is as follows5: The dominant
tradition in philosophy of science has emphasized argumentation, and the analysis of
modes of argumentation. Orthogonally, the history of science has attempted mainly to
assess outcomes or consequences of scientific enterprises, whether material, practical,
social, or intellectual. I am attempting neither of these projects, though both are clearly
valuable and necessary. As should be evident from the foregoing development, my
interest is in yet another dimension: The four interlinked structural analyses that I will
now enter into are conceived as a means of describing the world in which my authors
operated – the conceptual systems that they each deployed for the study of mind; the
textual expositions by means of which they delivered these systems, the icons to which
4 The canny reader will have noticed that, in this introduction, I have used ‘intellectualtradition’ as a neutral descriptor of the work I am analyzing. This gesture is intended toleave open questions about its possible identity as either scientific or philosophical.Insofar as either label is appropriate (or, better, useful) to the work of my seven authors,this will – I hope – emerge as a conclusion from my analysis rather than an assumption.5 There are, obviously, many variants on the pocket sketch I develop here of philosophyand history of science. Furthermore, those enterprises are not so starkly independent as Imay superficially suggest. Nonetheless, I think there is a hard grain of truth to thedepiction of the two as, respectively, stressing argument and consequence. Nothingstands or falls on the absolute truth of this, however, as long as it is recognized thatargument and consequence are not my concerns.
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they felt it appropriate to refer to position their texts; and the social networks within
which they traveled while developing their work.
My development will begin with the assumption that these texts, and their
authors, form a heterogeneous set. They will be treated as (at least potentially) describing
different subject matters, having different objects, and establishing different conclusions.
To the extent that patterns of continuity emerge, this will be a product of my analysis,
rather than a starting point. At the outset, I will attempt only to depict what work on the
human mind was like during the period of interest, and what the project(s) of the authors
were in pursuing this work: What were the relevant phenomena, and how were they
organized? What was the understood significance of the study of mind in this intellectual
community? What purpose did an ongoing tradition of text writing on the subject serve?
Did this result in discipline formation or professionalization? How did the intellectual
landscape change over the period in question and why did it end? While I hope to
establish certain trends within the structural comparisons being made to these ends, we
should begin by leaving open any questions as to what – specifically – these trends will
be.
3.1 Conceptual Structures
This section provides a schematic treatment of the conceptual systems employed
by each author in the tradition(s) I am following. The object is to demonstrate
relationships among the central structuring concepts relied upon by these writers in
offering their various theories of the mind. To accomplish this, I will use a set of
diagrams representing different aspects of each conceptual structure. These figures are
intended to serve as a shorthand, conveying in a synthetic form the basic dimensions
within which intellectual discussions of the human mind took place. They are meant to
be analogous to the conceptual structures of sixteenth century astronomy offered by
Barker [2001] (see section 2.3.1), although I use a more elaborate and looser set of visual
tools to accomplish my task.6
6 One could argue that a more elaborate and looser set of tools is required to mapconceptual structures of the mind than to map conceptual structures of astronomy. Just
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It should come as no surprise that such a method is highly interpretive. I make no
apology for this fact and hope only to convince the reader that mine is a plausible
interpretation. I suggest that my method falls prey to the perils of interpretation no more
than does Barker’s, although I admit that his subject matter – the Copernican revolution –
has the advantage over mine in general familiarity. To rectify that disadvantage, I will
take care to argue the case for my treatment. The visual aids I employ will be explicated
in my accompanying notes, and I will begin by documenting in detail the manner in
which a representative figure was developed.7
The focus here will be entirely on concepts explicitly advertised by each worker.
By building up a depiction of the features attributed to the mind, their interrelationships,
and their entailments – from Hume to Bain - we can begin to reveal the incremental
process of propagation of the intellectual tradition. This will provide one way of
assessing the possible paradigmatic (in a roughly Kuhnian sense) character of the
enterprise. While we should not expect changes in the system of intellectual discourse to
entirely capture the nature of the work, it is a significant aspect of it. Subsequent sections
will, of course, examine the tradition from a series of other perspectives.
3.1.1 Hume
Hume’s description of the operations of the mind is given in its most
comprehensive form in the Treatise. While this early work was formally repudiated by
Hume himself – in favor of a series of later, shorter expositions – it will be convenient
here to use the original development as representing the standard version of Hume’s
conceptual system here. As I will discuss in the next section, the later Hume (as evident
in Enquiries and the Dissertation on the Passions) did not significantly revise the basic
conceptual structure used in the Treatise. While the argumentation Hume used to defend
such notions were frequently implicit in the work on the mind being studied here, as Iwill make more clear in section 4.1.7 That is, the first figure in the following treatment – Figure 3.1 – will serve as anexample of how the diagram was generated, systematically extracting each element fromHume’s text. Subsequent figures have been constructed in the same way, but I will notcontinue to indicate this explicitly, as it would take up far too much time and space here.
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his position was altered between the different expositions, the position itself remained
effectively constant.
The most fundamental division in Hume’s system is that of perceptions into
impressions and ideas (see Figure 3.1).8 Taking this distinction most directly from
Locke, Hume maintains that all human perception is of either one kind or the other, with
impressions being distinguished most fundamentally by their having greater force or
vivacity.9 Having dispensed with this division in the first passage of Book I of the
Treatise, Hume effectively ceases to employ the term ‘perception’ at all, using instead the
more specific designators. He also identifies another dimension to the problem at hand,
that of complexity. Besides the primary division into weak and violent, along a scale of
vivacity, he suggests an independent one into simple and complex, along a scale of
complexity.10 Within these two dimensions, there are additional significant features.
Simple ideas are generated exclusively by simple impressions, while impressions are
resolvable into two species according to whether they are generated by sensations
(externally to the self) or by reflexion of ideas (internally).11 While ideas inhabit a
8 “All the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two distinct kinds,which I shall call IMPRESSIONS and IDEAS.” [Treatise, p.1]9 “The difference betwixt these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness, with whichthey strike upon the mind, and make their way into our thought or consciousness.”[Treatise, p.1]and“”The first circumstance that strikes my eye, is the great resemblance betwixt ourimpressions and ideas in every other particular, except their degree of force andvivacity.” [Treatise, p.2]10 “There is another division of our perceptions, which it will be convenient to observe,and which extends both to our impressions and ideas. This division is into Simple andComplex. Simple perceptions or impressions and ideas are such as to admit of nodistinction nor separation. The complex are the contrary to these and may bedistinguished into parts. [Treatise, p.2]11 Hume’s first general proposition in the Treatise: “That all our simple ideas in their firstappearance are deriv’d from simple impressions, which are correspondent to them, andwhich they exactly represent.” [Treatise, p.4]and“Impressions may be divided into two kinds, those of Sensation and those of Reflexion.The first kind arises in the soul originally, from unknown causes. The second is derivedin great measure from our ideas.” [Treatise, p.7] Hume proceeds, after this passage, toclarify that impressions of reflexion are immediately dependent on ideas, but that theseideas are themselves the consequent of other impressions.
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weaker portion of the vivacity spectrum, there is some overlap possible in the region
characteristic of memory. Ideas of memory are those with more force, more closely
related (in experience) to impressions; ideas of imagination occur at a lower end of the
scale.12 Ideas and impressions, in general, can also be contraposed according to a
distinction between natural and artificial (or natural and philosophical) aspects. These
notions – and also, it will emerge, the complex ideas and impressions – require additional
conceptual apparatus to explain, depending as they do on processes of association and
relation (see Figure 3.2 and corresponding discussion below).
To this point then, we have established the contours of the fundamental
phenomena Hume finds necessary to explain the operations of human nature. This
conceptual basis is shown in Figure 3.1, as derived from the accompanying textual
evidence from the Treatise shown in footnotes. It consists of two dimensions of
complexity and vivacity, within which different species of perceptions are classified
according to proximate source, and degree of compounding. Correspondent with the
vivacity axis, a division between the natural (external, constitutive, ineluctable) and
artificial (internal, philosophical, nominal) is suggested, but remains to be explained. The
proceeding development will approach the conceptual systems laid out subsequent
figures more synthetically, without detailed reference to the original text.13
The creation of complex ideas and impressions is accomplished, in Hume’s
system, by two sets of distinct processes he calls associations and relations (see Figure
3.2). These operate to connect simple perceptions into complex aggregates that we can
then treat as units in their own right. The two sets, though, are oriented toward different
objects. The ‘natural’ associations are those three mechanisms by which, owing to our
constitution as humans, we connect ideas. They are formally three in number –
resemblance, contiguity, and causation. However, Hume prominently reduces causation
12 “’Tis evident at first sight, that the ideas of the memory are much more lively andstrong than those of the imagination, and that the former faculty paints its objects in moredistinct colours, than any which are implied by the latter.” [Treatise, p.9]13 Having demonstrated to here the connection between the text and the schematics I willuse to indicate the structuring of each author’s intellectual apparatus, I will concentratemore on the elaboration of conceptual relationships in the work than on the minutiae ofdocumentation. The reader can assume a similar correspondence between figure andsource in each of the following concept diagrams.
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to constant temporal conjunction, so that is more properly a subset of contiguity.
Furthermore, while all three nominal species of association are understood to act on
ideas, only that of resemblance operates on impressions. Impressions, for the most part,
are not Hume’s focus in the Treatise; instead, he will develop his science of man
primarily from the perspective of ideas – taking what Reid would call “the way of
ideas.”14
The products of associative process are new complex ideas, including three
classes Hume identifies as modes, substances, and relations. These are only types of
idea, not natural categories, but they will serve critical functions in Hume’s explanation
of human mental activity. Substances, for Hume, are complex ideas that name particular
aggregates of simple qualities constituting fictive ‘things’. The one that he devotes the
most time developing in the Treatise is the Self, which he characterizes as a bundle of
perceptions within which we introspect continuity. Modes are names for states of being,
ways that a substance can persist. The state of Belief is a mode of the Self, for Hume, in
which a feeling of acquiescence accompanies a perception. Belief, he further maintains,
is generated only by causal inference, among the several associations. Relations are
complex ideas designating types of connective links among other ideas or impressions.
Since they designate mental phenomena rather than the order of the world, they are
‘philosophical’ rather than ‘natural.’ The seven classes of relation that Hume admits are:
(1) resemblance, (2) contrariety, (3) quality, (4) quantity, (5) identity, (6) space-time
relations, and (7) causation. These can be further divided into those that depend only on
ideas (the first through fourth classes) and the remainder, which are also contingent on
matters of fact (and, thus, impressions).15 Members of the former group are the only
relations that generate certain knowledge, and thus science.16 This process can operate
either immediately (as with certain judgment of the similarity of two things) or through
demonstration (as with determination of the numerical equality of two sets).
14 Pertinent to this, while Hume discusses the structure of space and time at length, aspreface to the problem of contiguous association, resemblance is left as an almost emptycategory (its constitutive character is unexamined).15 This is made more clear in the First Enquiry [pp.17-22] than in the Treatise.16 Hume’s (and the remaining authors’) use of ‘science’ and ‘philosophy’ will be a centralsubject in the following chapter.
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Relations provide the mechanism in the third major element of Hume’s system –
the generation of passions (see Figure 3.3). Hume’s famous phrasing was that the
passions appear by a process of “double relation.” These passions, more modes of the
self in Hume’s development, are distinct, non-rational states of feeling. They can be
divided into two kinds: direct passions - those having no object other than themselves,
including most prominently pleasure and pain but also desire, fear, etc.; and indirect
passions – those connected to some discrete object, as I will develop shortly. It is this
partition that results in the double relation form. All passions have causes, in the
established restricted sense, which are compounded of a quality and a subject; that is, the
complex idea of a relation between a thing (e.g., a house) and a quality (shabbiness)
creates in us a passionate feeling in two parts – the direct (that shabby house pains me)
and the indirect (my shabby house, in reflecting on me, shames me into humility). In the
latter case, the object of the Self superadds a special indirect passion to the more
fundamental direct passion, making the set of relations a dual one. In fact, to be more
precise, there are four relations involved in this process: that between quality and
subject, forming cause; that between cause and direct passion; that between cause and
object, further compounding the cause; and that between this second order cause and the
indirect passion. Nonetheless, the duality Hume proposes is between direct and indirect.
The indirect passions and their objects form the primary subject of Books II and
III of the Treatise. It is unclear from the text whether or not Hume intends this discussion
as an exhaustive catalog of the indirect passions, but in the event he lists four distinct
subtypes. With the exception of the last, these are all bimodal pairs: pride and humility,
love and hatred, vice and virtue, and allegiance.17 These differ solely in their objects and
– on that account – their degree of naturality or artificiality. Pride and humility are the
indirect correspondents of pleasure and pain, respectively, conjoined with the object of
the Self. As an affinity with the self is unavoidable, these passions and their subvariants
develop inexorably (‘naturally’) as the primary passionate mode. Similarly, love and
hatred describe pleasurable or painful feelings conjoined with others (other people) as
their object. These, too, arise unavoidably from human nature, by extension of our own
17 To this last, we could pair ‘perfidy’ and remain consistent with Hume’s pattern. Thepolitically astute Hume refrained from this extension.
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feelings toward our companions.18 The development of passions for vice, virtue, and
allegiance requires a relational operation with respect to fictive objects like ‘justice’ and
‘nation,’ both of which are only ideas. These latter are thus classed as artificial relative to
the natural ones that refer to our constitution as social humans.
The scope of Hume’s system of the mind is thus as follows: Our basic stimuli are
impressions and ideas, from which arise both our rational and non-rational capacities.
These exist in a field constituted by axes of vivacity and complexity. Associations and
relations compound the simple into the complex. Thereby, they generate both exact
knowledge – as relationships between ideas – and direct and indirect feelings.19 The
former problem, that of knowledge, is taken up in Book I of the Treatise. Books II and
III examine the passions and their consequents, the various forms of moral behavior that
arise for humans in society. This apparatus is, for Hume, a sufficient foundation for the
study of all phenomena of the mind or, in other words, for the practice of the ‘science of
human nature.’ The Treatise outlines the practice of this science only in relation to the
basic problems of human behavior in organized society (justice, law, political economy,
etc.).20 Otherwise, the work concentrates on the purely mental domain, and represents the
first of the Associationist manifestos on mind I will consider in this chapter.
18 The process is that of Humean sympathy. Sympathy reduces to a habitual relationbetween ourselves and others, and is not so powerfully a natural force as Hume’sextended attention to it in the Treatise might suggest. While it is natural – sense #1 – inarising from unavoidable circumstance, it is not natural – sense #2 – in that it is not apermanent external feature of the world as gravity appears to be. Far from being‘Humean gravity’ in the way that some commentators have suggested, it is more like asort of induced magnetism – a mobilized susceptibility. This latter interpretation, as anaside, fits nicely with the established usage of the term – ‘Sympathy’ was, the OxfordEnglish Dictionary informs us, a term in general use in the early eighteenth century.Addison, for example, employed it in the Spectator in 1711. More distantly, Pliny used itin Hume’s sense, especially in reference to the action of magnets. Sympathy in Hume’swork as a whole is a larger subject than I can address here, and it demands more seriousattention. However, sympathy is not a fundamental element of his conceptual system ofthe mind, but only a name for a particularly pertinent modal function of the self.19 I will take up Hume’s conception of the relative importance of reason and passion, forthe science of man, in the following chapter’s discussion of science and philosophy inthis conceptual scheme.20 It is unclear whether Hume intended this application to be the full extent of his moralscience. The employment of a congruent apparatus in the essay, “On the Standard ofTaste” suggests not. This is a problem outside the scope of the present discussion.
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Figure 3.1: Impressions and Ideas in Hume’s Treatise
Impressions
VIVACITY
COMPLEXITY
SIMPLE
COMPLEX
Ideas
REFLEXION SENSATION
Imagination Memory
ARTIFICIAL NATURAL
WEAK/CALM LIV ELY/VI OLENT
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Figure 3.2: Association and Relation in Hume’s Treatise
ASSOCIATION
Resemblance
Contiguity
(Causation)
IMPRESSIONS
IDEAS
BELIEF
MODES
SUBSTANCES
RELATIONS
SELF
ResemblanceContrariety
Quality
Quantity
IdentitySpace/TimeCausation
Knowledge/CertaintyScience
IMMEDIATE
DEMONSTRABLE
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Figure 3.3: Hume’s System of Double Relation of the Passions
SUBJECT
QUALITY
Relation
Relation
DIRECTPASSION
INDIRECTPASSION
OBJECT
Pleasure/Pain, etc.
Pride/HumilityLove/HatredVice/VirtueAl legiance
(etc.?)
SelfOthersJusticeNation(etc.?)
NATURAL
ARTIFICIAL
3.1.2 Hartley
Hartley’s associationism differs distinctly from Hume’s in flavor. While Hume
concentrates exclusively on mental aspects of knowledge, Hartley begins his discussion
in physiology. On one level, then, his work is rooted in the experimental method more
fully than the Treatise, proposing as it does mechanistic demonstration. On another,
though, Hartley aspires to a much more abstract goal than Hume does. As Allen notes,
Hartley’s intent in writing his Observations was to detail the “corporeal, mental, moral,
and religious capacities” of man. [Allen, 1999, p.81] This is a far cry from Hume’s
contemporaneous aspiration to establish a science of human nature. Hartley’s system,
however much it is grounded in physiological detail and empirical observation, must be
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recognized as fundamentally a contribution to natural religious doctrine. Not only does
he conceive God as the prime mover in the mental regime (as in the material), but also
the ends to which his doctrine points are inextricably linked with (dissenting Protestant)
Christian morality.
But this is not where the distinctions end. Hume’s treatment is firmly descriptive,
while Hartley’s is instead purposive – even teleological – in its intentions. Association,
for Hartley, is an active principle manifesting divine will. The proper association of
ideas, for Hartley, elevates man from the mundane to the ethical-spiritual regime.
Association, in his hands, thus becomes an engine for divine perfection in the world, a
kind of teleological principle with purposeful agency endowed by the Creator. It would,
even after death, allow man to ascend from carnality to spirituality in a reversal of the
Adamic fall.21 Association, in providing a mechanism for the transfer of vibrations from
the body to the soul, acted as a microcosm of God’s action in the world as a whole.22
This attribution of a divine principle to association provides the clearest justification for
Hartley’s necessitarian views; free will must be an illusion in this system, since body and
mind can be connected only through the agency of God. Our mental activity is thus
under the direct control of the divine and our choices reflect this input directly.23
Hartley’s conceptual system, then, is comprehensively overwritten with the
established doctrine of eighteenth century natural religion – aspiring to show the actions
of the human mind specifically as a manifestation of divine will (see Figure 3.4). As I
will discuss more in the next section, revealed religion – pursued through Biblical
analysis – formed a partner project to this empirical task. Within the natural domain,
Hartley makes a strong distinction between the material regime (that of the body) and the
mental regime (that of the mind or soul). His approach will be to describe the action of
the body on the mind, assuming God as a vehicle for the connection. From Newton, he
adopts the notion of vibrations in an aether to explain the transmission of phenomena to
21 For more on these Hartleyan notions, see Leslie [1972] and Oberg [1976]. Note alsothat Hartley’s position here closely follows the hermetic investigations of his avowedmentor, Newton (Smith [1987]).22 Not unlike the connective role Garber explains for God in the Cartesian dualist system[Garber, 1992].23 On vibration, association, and necessity, see Smith [1987].
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the mind. These vibrations – and their consequents, more aetherial vibratiuncles – have
the properties of intensity, frequency, location and line (i.e., vector). They operate in a
manner exactly analogous to acoustic vibrations in solid bodies; and their combination
results in complex harmonic signatures. External stimuli impact on our sense organs,
generating vibrations that are transmitted through the nerves to the brain by an aetherial
medium contained in these physiological features.24 In the process of entering the mental
regime, the vibrations are transformed into vibratiuncles, which are only qualitatively
different – being finer, more complex and (of course) non-material. Different sensory
organs impart different patterns of vibration into the nervous system and are thus
considered in individual detail. Of these, sight and hearing make the most prominent
appearance, as most closely related to language.
Hartley emphasizes the role of language in human development, both individually
and socially. In regard to the individual, he describes at length the process of childhood
vocabulary acquisition as leading toward a rational understanding of the world;
similarly, the historical process of increasing perfection he observes in languages
(through a comparative analysis of available vocabularies) indicates a progressive
improvement of reason from the ancients to his own day.25 As the ultimate achievement
in this process, he recommends the shorthand system of his friend, John Byrom, as a sort
of universal philosophical language that can eliminate uncertainty from communication.
Given the primary position attributed to linguistic studies in his hierarchy of sciences (for
which see section 4.1.2), such a system would play a crucial role in the establishment of a
rational scientific world.26 This is, for Hartley, the most prominent significance of
considering the details of sensation.
24 Specifically, the white matter of the brain was viewed as an appropriate medium for thepropagation of the vibratory mechanism by virtue of its homogeneity and uniformity;gray matter, by contrast, lacked the appropriate features to sustain such vibrationalresonances. See Smith [1987].25 This parallelism of the growth of language in the group and the individual isreminiscent (and, of course, anticipatory) of the ‘ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny’model of Haeckel.26 This pattern of attempting to perfect philosophy through the perfection of language hasbeen replicated again and again in intellectual history. It is perhaps most stronglyassociated with the Logical Positivist movement of the early twentieth century. Hartley’scontentions with regard to the Byrom shorthand – which he personally employed in his
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While the domain of sensation as a whole straddles the divide between body and
mind, with vibratiuncles proposed as the mechanistic connection, ideas – by contrast –
are phenomena entirely of the mind (or soul – Hartley uses the two interchangeably).
Like Hume, Hartley makes a strong distinction between those mental phenomena that
refer to the actual world through sensory mechanisms and those that are generated
internally by association. These latter – among which he includes desire, aversion, and
the other mundane passions – he terms “factitious” and recommends that they must be
transcended as they ultimately lead only to sin and depravity. Sexual desire, in particular,
he decries as a base motivation. Such declarations are in strong contrast to Hume’s
position that “reason is, and ought to be, the slave of the passions.” Against Hume (and
Locke, who Hartley references as the progenitor of the notion), Hartley argues that
reflection is not a distinct and genuine mode of receiving impressions, but is proper
instead only to ideas. This reinforces the ‘factitious’ and illegitimate nature he has
ascribed to internal feelings.
Hartley’s consideration of ideas relies entirely on the mechanism of association,
but unlike Hume he identifies only contiguity as a legitimate associational mode. All
other apparent types of association can be reduced to connections of simples in space and
time. Contiguous association of ideas in the mind creates more and more complex
aggregates and forms the basis for all mental functions. Among these capacities are the
generation of knowledge, affections, will, memory, and imagination.
Given the divine participation that Hartley assumes, the acquisition of knowledge,
or the ascertainment of Truth, can be couched as an unproblematic outcome of the
associative process (given due care on the part of the agent). Belief and assent are thus
used as effective synonyms for knowledge, and scientific certainty is its predictable
consequent. More on Hartley’s conception of this resulting science can be found in
section 4.1.2.
Similarly, Hartley conceives a multitude of other human capacities to be
straightforward results of association. These include the entirety of what we might call
intellectual, emotional, and active powers (Hartley does not so describe them). His most
own writing – are a harbinger of the positivist bid to create a ‘perspicuous observationlanguage.’
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comprehensive discussion of this subject identifies a dynamic developmental hierarchy of
some of these capacities (see Figure 3.5). In the sequence of moral development,
sensation is primary, producing – in succession – imagination, ambition, self-interest,
sympathy, theopathy (the love of God), and the moral sense (which is, in another sense,
the highest order phenomenon. However, each of these capacities has reciprocal action
on the others, so that each can – once developed – act upon those that generated it. This
structure thus not only allows for the development of higher capacities from lower ones,
but also introduces a mechanism by which the baser capacities can be improved in
concordance with increasing recognition of divine will.
The human passions, or (equivalently, for Hartley) affections, are – as for Hume –
divisible according to a felicific calculus (see Figure 3.6). That is, sensory (bodily)
pleasure and pain form the entire basis for the identified passions. Hartley denominates
five basic species of mental affections according to the phenomena with which they are
associated. Each species is further divisible into grateful and ungrateful modes referring
to their associated pleasantness or painfulness, respectively. Thus, the pair of love
(grateful) and hatred (ungrateful) are associated with objects in the world (persons,
things). Likewise for the relationship of desire and aversion with actions; that of hope
and fear with the time over which desire and aversion are sustained; that of joy and grief
with the fulfillment of a desire or an aversion; and positive and negative recollections
with the past circumstance they re-enact. Hartley’s catalog of passions is thus similar to
Hume’s in basis, but divergent in content. Unlike Hume, Hartley is explicit in couching
it as a comprehensive listing.
In comparing Hartley and Hume’s systems, we begin to see certain patterns of
continuity emerge. The two share a similar terminological base, and many of the same
understood dimensions of variation. Nonetheless, they differ greatly in the understood
scope of the enterprise, on the expected results of it, and on the constituent parts of the
classes of phenomena they identify. I will return to examine these comparisons in the
synopsis to this section (3.1.8, below), but let us first turn to the work of Thomas Reid to
see yet a third system for describing the mind in this same generation of work.
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Figure 3.4: Hartley’s System of Sensation, Association, and Human Capacities
FEELINGTASTESMELL
SIGHTHEARING
LANGUAGE
TRUTH(Belief/Assent)
SCIENCES
AFFECTIONS,WILL, MEMORYIMAGINATION
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Figure 3.5: Hartley’s Reciprocal Compounding of Human Capacities
SENSATION
SELF-INTEREST
MORAL SENSE
SYMPATHY
IMAGINATION
AMBITION
THEOPATHY
Figure 3.6: Hartley’s System of Passions or Affections
AFFECTIONS/PASSIONS
Pleasure Pain
UNGRATEFULGRATEFUL
Love
Desire
Hope
Joy
Recollection(Positive)
Hatred
Aversion
Fear
Grief
Recollection(Negative)
(+ Object)
(+ Action)
(+ Time Sustained)
(+ Fulfillment)
(+ Time Past)
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3.1.3 Reid
Common sense philosophy emerged, in Reid’s work, as the primary interlocutor
for associationism. While Hume had alluded to the role of common sense in his Treatise,
it was Reid who made it a primary principle of inquiry into the mind. The conceptual
system of mind developed in this endeavor demonstrates again several common features
in the space it maps out, but also displays a basis of natural faculties rather than
associative processes. Reid’s system as a whole is more complex to trace, since its
exposition is not effectively contained in a single work, like that of Hume or Hartley.
Instead, his treatment of mental powers (as he would call them) emerged in three
installments – the earlier Inquiry [1764] and the two later sets of Essays on Intellectual
[1785] and Active [1788] powers. Reid’s work, though, like Hume’s, exhibits a fairly
high degree of continuity between elements. What follows will be a synthesis of the
concepts employed in those works, which suggest only minor variations in terminology
in an otherwise stable conceptual system.
The most basic unit in Reid’s system is the self (see Figure 3.7). This is
conceived of as the indivisible locus of a soul-mind-sentience that is possessed of a set of
definable powers. Reid distinguishes these powers on a familiar set of axes of simple-
complex, natural-artificial, and active-intellectual. There is a strong suggestion that these
axes are oriented toward a common dimension, so that the simple, the natural, and the
active (and their opposite numbers) would be correlated to one another. They are,
however, apparently considered irreducible. The different human powers are arrayed in
different locations along these spectra in contraposed pairs. Sensation and perception are
distinguished according to the simplicity of the former and complexity of the latter. In
language, expression is attributed to the natural side while signification is attributed to the
artificial. The most sweeping distinction is between a set of intellectual powers (usually
designated faculties) and another of active ones (usually referred to as capacities). In the
former class, the faculty of reason or understanding is accompanied by memory,
conception, taste (in an aesthetic sense), perception, and consciousness. In the latter, we
have the will, passion, affection, appetite, instinct, and habit. These various powers of
man, Reid’s solution to the problems he identified in the associationist program of
explanation, produce the entire range of human activities. Most conspicuously, on the
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intellectual side, they generate human knowledge, which Reid variously identifies with
both judgment and belief.27
The central role of common sense in Reid’s system becomes evident by
examining the qualitative assessments he makes of the value of different powers for
mankind overall. These indicate a general commitment to simplicity over complexity,
the natural over the artificial, and the active over the intellectual.28 As a further case in
point, Reid’s depiction of the growth of human knowledge uses the analogy of a tree,
with perception forming the root system, common understanding the trunk, and the
sciences the diverse branches. This tree of knowledge is sustained by common sense, as
the stout connection by which the nourishment of the external world reaches the isolated
and delicate limbs of more remote reasoning.
In addition to the overall split between sensation and perception, five individual
sensory modes – distinguished by organ – are also ranked on the axis of simplicity versus
complexity (see Figure 3.8).29 This classical list of sense types places smell at the simple
end of the scale, followed in increasing complexity by taste (as physical gustation, not
aesthetic acumen), hearing, touch, and sight. A sixth, moral, sense – the ability to discern
good from evil – is then appended to this inventory, with its position in terms of
complexity being unclear relative to the other modes. This new sixth member shares
with the others the essential character of being directly felt.
Up to this point, then, Reid’s system appears as a stark alternative to the
associationist mental concept set, but remains defined on the same set of underlying
dimensions. Reid’s innovation, in establishing the common sense tradition, was to
postulate – instead of a process of mental concatenation of stimuli – a rich set of filters
(the faculties and capacities) that provide us with the multivalent abilities that are evident
27 The later Reid clarifies this apparent equation, subdividing the actuation of intellectualpowers more finely, as we will see in the continuing discussion.28 The case is more complicated than this, since Reid attempts an even-handed treatmentof the entire range of human experience. However, he does uniformly recommend anattention to the humble over the exalted and the common over the abstract. I will take upthis problem more in chapter 4.29 Reid’s introduction of this subject shares with Hartley an explicit adherence to the fivemodes of sensation identified by Aristotle (De Sensu). However, as we will see shortly,he begins a process of broadening the scope of the sensations that will continue in thistradition.
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in all humans. Broadly speaking, the associationists tried to reduce the many to one and
argue back to an explanation of the range of experience, while Reid was content to retain
an initial multiplicity and proceed by elimination when possible to reach a parsimonious
explanation. This considered embrace of the complexity of human lived experience was
tempered by his prior commitment to a common sense perspective – Reid aspired to treat
the complex with maximal (but not extreme) simplicity and straightforwardness, in
contrast to his predecessors, who he saw as falling prey to undue abstraction of the
problem at hand.
His acceptance of a complex mental world, and the attendant complexity of its
analysis, led him also to the postulation of a multitude of first principles basic to the
study of mind (see Figure 3.9). Considerations of space here prevent elaboration of the
various elements of this list, or the extended arguments that Reid sets out to justify them.
However, as Figure 3.9 shows, they are divided into necessary and contingent categories
– the former being (more or less) matters of principle, and the latter matters of fact. In
the former class, we find fundamental principles of language (grammar) and
argumentation (logic), as well as the postulation of a world constituted by morality,
predictability, and divine intention.30 To deny these, Reid argued, flew in the face of
what is self-evident to us all. If this set were rationally indisputable, the other principles
he proposed were instead dependent on the details of the world in which we happen to
find ourselves. For example, we find – as a matter of course, in the acquisition of
experience – that those things of which we are conscious exist. Similarly, we find that
humans are the sort of creatures that, like ourselves, exhibit activity, intelligence, and
predictability. These are all, as he attempted to show, results of the best evidence
available – in Reid’s view, this was all that one could expect from the principles of an
empirical science. Moreover, he says, they fulfill the criterion that Hume would have
acknowledged as the deciding factor in human nature: we are compelled to believe them.
While empirical evidence is necessary as the ground of belief, Reid – echoing Hume –
30 God, while a closely included member of Reid’s set of primary concepts, actually playsa fairly peripheral role in the system. For Reid, unlike Hartley, God was not an activeagent in human affairs, but rather a fundamental precondition for human affairs. Thismakes Reid’s philosophy more easily secularized than Hartley’s.
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maintains that “[b]elief in general is the main spring in the life of a man.” [Reid, EIP,
p.328]
The set of first principles that Reid lays out in this discussion prepare the ground
for his considered treatment of our various powers. These he defends, against the
associationist charge of his multiplying phenomena beyond necessity, by suggesting that
the acceptance of one faculty is equivalent to accepting them all, since they all derive
“from the same shop.” That is, given the assumption – by Hume and Hartley, among
others – of a power of agency and consciousness, we are in the position of accepting
other similar capacities. Reid bolsters this position by suggesting (like Hartley) a process
of compounding that can explain the various functions that human beings exercise (see
Figure 3.10). Here, Reid differentiates between the powers as potentialities, and their
exercise as productive outcome. His intention is to show the individual necessity of the
various powers he proposes, acting either in isolation or in concert. His listing here
focuses most directly on the intellectual powers (it is derived from his Essays on that
subject), but does include volition as the fundamental active power. Most basically, on
the intellectual side, he identifies the power of conception (or imagination). By being
exercised, this mental potential source generates apprehension. Similarly, a combination
of conception with a sensory capacity generates sensation; sensation directed to an object
generates perception; perception plus reason yield common understanding and, more
abstractedly, science. The primary products – those Reid emphasizes – are belief,
coming from a combination of sensation, remembrance, and evidence; and common
sense, which appears as a sort of interface between perception and reason.31 In this entire
discussion, reason is a category in tension, as it tends toward both the artificial and the
complex while also being a necessary element in common sense. Knowledge correlates
more strongly with belief than reason for Reid, as it does for Hume also.
31 Common sense is a multivalent term for Reid. However, it can be shorthanded –without too much damage – as the sort of capacity that is decisive for our beliefs inregarding the direct intuitive evidence of our perceptions. It is not a faculty in its ownright, but rather a mode of interaction among several faculties, in which perception isexamined by common understanding (simple understanding) with an eye toward belief(or, equally, disbelief).
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The various active powers – appetite, emotion, passion, affection, instinct, and
habit – are the principles of human action, but are not rational ones. Reid’s discussion of
these features reveals more conceptual relationship with his contemporaries. He, like
Hume but versus Hartley, embraces the power – and ultimate benefit and utility – of such
capacities. In a terminological innovation, Reid makes a distinction between passions
and emotions, on the basis that the former have active force while the latter do not.32 This
move toward a philosophy of action (speaking in terms of action) is congruent with his
other identifications with common sense, belief, and expression.33
Reid’s philosophy also, and congruently, moves decisively from the mental to the
physical regime. In a skeptical gesture, Reid explicitly rejected Hartley’s physiology as
too mechanistically speculative, but – like Hartley and versus Hume – devoted
considerable attention, the entirety of his first major work, to the details of sensation (and
perception).34 Overall, his introduction of a new explanatory frame – introducing
faculties; accenting action, practice, and commonsensical direct realism – called the
accepted dimensions of mental activity into question.
32 The language of ‘passions’ versus ‘emotions’ in this period is a topic of great interest.Hume relied almost exclusively on the former term, although he mentions ‘emotion’ inhis Dissertation on the Passions [pp.162-163], in a sense apparently intended to equate towhat he calls ‘direct passions’ elsewhere. During the eighteenth century, however, thelatter term began to gain increasing currency. Part of this may be explicable by means ofdistinctions such as that made by Reid. However, the popular etymology of the two maybe equally revealing: Referring to the Oxford English Dictionary, we find that ‘passion’is the older term in English usage, having the literal sense of sustaining a pain. It alsocarries with it a strong theological connotation related to Christ’s suffering on the cross.‘Emotion’, by contrast, originally related to physical motion, and was only latertransferred to the mental regime. It has only a secular meaning. The simultaneity of thelinguistic shifts from ‘soul’ to ‘mind’ (on which, see Reed, [1997]) and ‘passion’ to‘emotion’ is highly suggestive of a general process of purging theology from scienceduring the period. Furthermore, the disappearance of ‘passion’ as a formal mentaldescriptor in the nineteenth century coincides with the demise of the ‘felicific calculus’ ofthe previous period; while Hume, Hartley, and Reid all agree that active states of mindhave either a positive (pleasurable) or negative (painful) valence, this position issuperseded, in the work of Brown, Mill, and Bain, by the notion that many induced statesof mind are of neither sort, but are rather neutral. The shift from passion to emotiondeserves much further study to sort out these rather complex connections.33 Intuitive linguistic expression (gesture, tone, etc.) appears as a kind of universal naturallanguage in Reid’s work.34 On Reid’s rejection of Hartley’s mechanism, see Grave [1960, p.18]
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Figure 3.7: Reid’s Plan of the Human Powers
SELF(Soul/Mind/
Sentient Being)
GOD(Divine Inspiration)
NATURAL(Innate)
ARTIFICIAL(Acquired)
ACTIVE
SIMPLE
COMPLEX
INTELLECTUAL
Capacities
Faculties
POWERS
Sensation
Perception
JUDGEMENTKNOWLEDGE
BELIEF
EXPRESSION SIGNIFICATION
Will, Passion,Affection, Appetite,
Instinct, Habit
Reason/Understanding,Memory, Conception
Taste, PerceptionConsciousness
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Figure 3.8: Reid’s Sensory Hierarchy in the Inquiry
SENSORY-PERCEPTUAL MODES
SMELL – TASTE – HEARING – TOUCH – SIGHT(MORAL SENSE)
Simple Complex
Figure 3.9: Summary of First Principles Cited by Reid in EIP
FIRST PRINCIPLES
NECESSARY CONTINGENT
• Grammatical Principles• Logical Principles• Moral Principles• Metaphysical Principles• Causality• Theological Design
• Objects of consciousness exist• Thoughts are one’s own• Distinct memory implies occurrence• Memory implies existence of self• Objects of perception are as perceived.• Power over actions of self.• Faculties not fallacious.• Others alive and intelligent.• Natural language indicates state of mind.• Due regard for testimony and authority.• Predictability of humans.• Uniformity of nature.• (etc.)
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Figure 3.10: Reid’s Plan of Faculties, Their Compounds, and Their Products
FACULTIES(& COMPOU NDS THEREOF) Exercise of Faculty(s)
CONCEPTION/IMAGINATION Apprehension
CONCEPTION + SENSE CAPACITY Sensation
CONCEPTION + MEMORY Remembrance
VOLITION (given Agency) Action
Sensation + Object Perception COMMON SENSE
Perception + Reason*OBVIOUS: Common Understanding
+ Evidence Belief
* Reason = Understanding = Philosophy
REMOTE: Science
3.1.4 Brown
Reid’s work was importantly promulgated in the later eighteenth century by
Dugald Stewart and a circle of Reid’s other colleagues. A fuller examination of the study
of the mind in Britain would linger on this next period, which also saw the associationist
program extended by Joseph Priestley, Erasmus Darwin, Adam Smith, and others; as well
as the introduction of significant elements of German and French inquiry into the British
intellectual milieu. Here, I will jump to the work of Thomas Brown – two intellectual
generations after the contributions of Hume, Hartley, and Reid – and consider the
conceptual reorientations that are evident in comparing his system to those of his
predecessors. This will help assess the common wisdom that Brown is primarily
significant as a synthesist of Hume and Reid.
Brown’s thought was summarized in the posthumously published Sketch of a
System of the Human Mind. However, as Brown was unable to complete this work
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before his early death, it is necessary to refer to his more extensive Lectures for a full
examination of his system. The proposed outline of the Sketch follows the plan of the
Lectures exactly, so an extrapolation from one to the other is possible.
In consulting these works, we find that Brown has significantly altered the terms
of discussion, relative to the eighteenth century tradition (see Figure 3.11). Like Reid, he
effectively assumes a present self, who is now shown as embedded in a temporal
framework of consciousness. The self is characterized by a set of affections, arranged in
four-fold order. Of these four, one pair – sensations and appetites – are attributed to
external phenomena; the other pair – intellectual states and emotions – are internal in
origin. Thus far, this would appear to be an arrangement compatible with Reid’s catalog
of faculties under a different name. However, they are not uniformly referred to the
simple-complex, active-intellectual, natural-artificial axes that were common in earlier
work. Classing them together under the rubric of affections further emphasizes their
commonality in this regard. Even more importantly, they are conceived as states rather
than powers. The states of sensation include those not only the classic five senses, but
also a class of muscular feelings that differ in having no distinct organ. Within the
organic senses, we see the reappearance of a simple-complex division that ranks smell,
taste and hearing on the lower end of the scale and touch and sight on the higher end.
This elevation of touch, congruent with the inclusion of muscular feeling and the denial
of an overall active-intellectual distinction, points to a shift in emphasis in the early
nineteenth century. What we see here, I think, is the beginning of a turn from activity (its
origin) as a problem to a focus on action (its description and control, in practice). Brown
does not, however, take the Hartleyan route of retreating to physiology for a basis.
Instead, as we will see, he projects the problem forward toward ethical implications; a
further discussion of this topic will proceed after we complete a survey of Brown’s
catalog of affections.
Brown identifies the internal affective states as either intellectual or emotional.
The intellectual states he accepts, however, are not like Reid’s faculties. While he
considers these proposed faculties in turn, beginning with consciousness, he ultimately
finds them all reducible to principles of association – or, as he would prefer, suggestion.
Suggestion, the process by which the train of thought proceeds, can be either simple or
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relative.35 Simple suggestion is our source of knowledge of resemblances and contrasts,
and thus plays essentially the same role as Hume’s association of impressions. Relative
suggestion, on the other hand, produces knowledge of (degrees of) nearness and
causality, serving as did Hume’s associations of ideas. Brown, however, does not
intimate any such distinction between impressions and ideas. The two categories of
suggestion differ fundamentally only in whether an immediate mental operation or a
successive train of thought is involved. Note, too, that Brown’s use of associative-
suggestive process is circumscribed – being attributed only to one of the four departments
of affections.
Adding to the temporal emphasis, Brown’s system of the emotions is ordered
according to their relationships to the lived experience of time (see Figure 3.12). While
Hume’s and Hartley’s analyses relied exclusively on the felicific calculus and Reid
provided no fundamental listing of emotions at all, Brown advertises the emotions as
either immediate, retrospective or prospective. He does not attempt an exhaustive listing
within any of these categories; in fact, he explicitly expects the emotional palette to
change with exposure to new circumstance. Instead, he ‘botanizes’ the emotions, listing
more than twenty identifiable variants over the set of temporal classes. Significant
elements in the substructure of this system include the presence or absence of a moral
orientation in the immediate emotions, and a partial categorization in terms of the felicific
calculus. Thus, our feelings of cheerfulness and beauty – for example – are contrasted to
those of virtue or sympathy (as amoral versus moral). Virtue is further paired with vice
(as an emotional pleasure versus a pain). However, and most centrally in the amoral
emotions, we see the establishment of a new group not entirely susceptible to a bimodal
division into positive and negative. While cheerfulness and melancholy, or wonder and
disgust, might be identified as pleasurable on the one hand and painful on the other, they
are not contraries of one another, but are rather each sui generis.
From this basic conceptualization of mental activity, Brown proceeded to the
regime of practice. He divided his project, the philosophy of mind, into three
35 Simplicity reappears again here, but it is contraposed to relativity rather thancomplexity. This is not exactly the same distinction earlier made in the domain ofsensation. The simple suggestions are those that are automatic and direct, while therelative are those requiring comparisons in space and time.
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departments – those of physiology, ethics, and political economy (see Figure 3.13).36
Physiology, for Brown, consisted in the matter just discussed, the operation of the
affections as a whole (rather than merely the study of bodily structure, which he does not
dwell on deeply).37 Ethics, by contrast, was the examination of human duty on the basis
of the facts of the prior physiology. Brown pursues this subject by again using a
botanizing – or natural historical – approach. Our duties are identified as relating to
ourselves, to others, and to God. Brown leaves this last obligation as a singular category,
but the other two are related to various disparate objects.38 Our duty to ourselves is
essentially one of self-realization or improvement (in Brown’s term, ‘cultivation’) – in
intellectual, moral, and religious terms. To others we owe both general and particular
obligations. In a list reminiscent of Hume’s objects of the indirect passions, the
important categories of these ‘others’ Brown considers are friends, family, business, and
and nation.39 The various practical implications of this set of obligations make up the
second moiety of Brown’s discussion in the Sketch and the Lectures.40 This move toward
more attention to social applications of the study of mind follows up on the eighteenth
century platforms for a science of man, and – at the same time – represents another aspect
of Brown’s reorientation of the playing field. While his work is rooted in the examples
of Hume and Reid, Brown conceives of the mind according to a different set of priorities
and is able to elaborate a different program as a result.
36 Brown’s conception of philosophy appears as a subject again in chapter 4.37 While Brown, like Hartley, was a medical practitioner, this did not lead him into anattempt to ‘physiologize’ mental function through postulation of material mechanism.38 Note too the increasingly peripheral position of the deity in the systems of Hartley,Reid, and now Brown – all religious men. While each clearly advocates a Christianperspective, this becomes a more flexible, and more vestigial, element over time.39 This listing need not be considered comprehensive. Brown does not indicate that it is.40 As the next section will detail, political economy was not included matter in either ofthese works.
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Figure 3.11: The Human Affections in Brown’s System
PAST PRESENT FUTURE
AFFECTIONS
External Internal
SENSATIONS APPETITESEMOTIONSINTELLECTUAL
STATESSenses
RelativeSuggestion(considered)
SmellTaste
Hearing
TouchSight
SimpleSuggestion(automatic)
ResemblanceContrast
NearnessCausality
MuscularFeelings
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Figure 3.12: Brown’s Temporal Organization of the Emotions
EMOTIONS
PRESENTPAST FUTURE
ImmediateRetrospective Prospective
Amoral Moral
Vice/VirtueLove/HatredSympathy
Pride/Humility(etc.)
CheerfulnessMelancholy
WonderDisgustBeauty(etc.)
Anger/GratitudeRegret/Gladness
(etc.)
Desire/Fearfor/of
SELF-PRESERVATION
PLEASURE
SOCIABILITYKNOWLEDGE
POWER
AVARI CE
AFFECTION
GLORY
(etc.)
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Figure 3.13: Brown’s Prospectus of the Philosophy of Mind
PHYSIOLOGY
PHILOSO PHY OF MIND
ETHICS POLITICAL ECONOMY
AFFECTIONS DUTYto
Others Self God
FriendsFamily
BusinessNation
THEOLOGY
Cultivation(Intellectual)
(Moral)(Religious)
3.1.5 Mill
Brown’s contemporary, James Mill, also a student of Dugald Stewart at the
University of Edinburgh, explicitly returned to the example of Hartley as inspiration for
his Analysis of the Phenomena of the Human Mind. Here, Mill establishes another strict
associationist system in the new terms of the early nineteenth century.
The founding element of Mill’s conceptual structure is sensation, defined
according to a set of four independent dimensions (see Figure 3.14). Any sensation can
be characterized according to its degrees of temporality (past-present-future), pleasure-
pain, immediacy-remoteness, and certainty-uncertainty. Mill sometimes refers to a fifth
division according to the necessary or accidental character of the sensation, particularly
in regard to remote sensations. Each of these valences is a constitutive quality of
sensation, and the differences among classes of sensation are based on them. One is
tempted to regard this as a sort of chemistry of human feelings. Mill does not, however,
attempt a comprehensive survey of these dimensions. For example, emotions (one class
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of sensations, for Mill) are not systematically placed within the four-dimensional
conceptual space laid out by Mill; not all positions in this space are given names, but the
existence of emotions corresponding to these positions is implied by his development.41
An additional functional filtering of sensations into either feelings of receptivity
or feelings of activity provides Mill with his framework for ordering the sensations
explicitly. Thus, effectively, the Reidian dichotomy of intellectual versus active powers
is retained by Mill, who notes that active ones are simply those that incite a response
while intellectual ones do not. [Mill, 1868, I, p.181] The three subgroups he identifies in
this spectrum are further distinguished according to their having (or not) organs, objects,
and feelings in their makeup. That is, on the receptive side, we can establish a
connection of each sensation with a specific organ, a specific object (a localized
stimulus), and a specific characteristic feeling. Among the active feelings, those
sensations of disorganization (indicative of general failure in the human system –
pleasures and pains, etc.) have only characteristic feelings; the sensations of the
alimentary canal and the muscles have both characteristic objects and feelings, but not
diversified organs. Thus, we see a physiological template placed over the existing
passive-active scale.
Mill adopts a rigorous copy theory of ideas, in which all ideas have their origins
in prior corresponding sensations. Ideas, for Mill, are only “that which exists [in the
mind] after the object of sense has ceased to be present.” [Mill, 1828, v.1, pp.51-52] All
complexity in mental phenomena is built up from a compounding of more simple
conceptions or ideas. Like Hartley, and against Hume and Brown, Mill acknowledges
only one genuine principle of association – that of contiguity, in synchronous (spatial)
and successive (temporal) modes. Repeated associations of evidence, as in Hume,
generate a state of belief, from which stem our capacities for judgment and memory.
Successive association, in particular, is at the root of our attributions of causality.
Following Hartley and Reid, Mill assigns a great deal of significance to the
understanding of language and its operation in generating knowledge. He traces the
41 At another level, Mill’s treatment of emotions suggests that he views them as anepiphenomenon, merely a set of names associated with particular states of feeling inparticular circumstances. The term ‘emotion’ is always subjugated to ‘sensation’ inMill’s development.
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development of ideas directly to the problem of naming. In this endeavor, he provides
three parallel treatments of language. First, he devotes attention to formal linguistic
structure (elements of grammar, or word types). Next, he employs the notion that names
are codified ideas - and thus only markers – to deflate Reid’s assignment of natural
faculties. Consciousness, memory, belief, etc. are all merely names for states or
processes of mind that we have come to distinguish, and not features of the mental
structure.42 Third and last, Mill similarly identifies a set of associative modes – seven
kinds of names that represent ways of combining simple ideas into more complex ones.
These are: (1) names of names; (2) relative terms; (3) numbers; (4) privative terms; (5)
time; (6) motion; and (7) identity. These map fairly well onto the philosophical relations
identified by Hume, although Mill speaks in terms of resulting relational terms and Hume
concentrates on relational processes. The theory of language thus provides both a
conceptual space for considering ideas and well as an argumentative tool to tag different
proposed mental features as actual or nominal.
Mill deals with the active aspects of human life in terms of motives, dispositions,
and affections (see Figure 3.17). This conception is again rooted in a developmental
temporal sequence. Our actions (both bodily and mental) and the causes of pleasure and
pain become associated with one another by conjunction over time. These associations,
codified in memory (that is to say, repeated until ingrained – memory is not a faculty
here), become recognized as motives. The strength of these motives is partially a result
of our susceptibility to them, according to certain innate differential individual
dispositions. We then proceed to act further on the strength of our motives. At the same
time as our associations of action and cause generate motive, the ideas of the causes of
our pleasures and pains themselves can become ingrained as affections. Mill’s special
use of affection here is in sharp contrast to Brown’s; while Brown employed it as a term
overarching all the feelings, Mill restricts it to that class of ideas that name our
established predilections.
Mill’s framework is as thoroughly secular (if not more so) and devoid of an
appeal to natural duty as is Hume’s. God appears in no significant way in his work,
42 This is essentially the same conclusion Brown came to, but framed in an explicitlylinguistic context that Brown’s was not.
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despite his personal clerical background. The moral sense, for Mill, is simply a
disposition or a mental status generated by certain trains of associative processes. While
our feelings of pleasure and pain direct our activity, they do not in so doing directly
establish a system of right and wrong. Thus, while Mill recognizes essentially the same
set of affective objects as Brown does – family, friends, nation, business, etc. – he speaks
of them descriptively rather than prescriptively.
Figure 3.14: Dimensionality of the Sensations in Mill’s Analysis
REMOTE
IMMEDIATE
FUTURE
UNCERTAIN
PLEASURE
PAST
PAIN
CERTAIN
NecessaryAccidental
SENSATION
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Figure 3.15: Mill’s Classification of Sensations and Ideas
SENSATIONS
(Feelings of Receptivity) (Feelings of Activity)
SmellHearingSightTasteTouch
Sensations ofDisorganization
Sensations of theAlimentary Canal
MuscularSensations
OBJECT
FEELING
FEELING
IDEAS
SIMPLE COMPLEX
ASSOCIATION (CONTIGUITY)
Syncronous (in Space)Successive (in Time)
BELIEF
CAUSATION
Judgement
Evidence
Memory
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Figure 3.16: Mill’s Mapping of the Expression of Ideas in Language
NAMESIDEASMARKING (Signification)
TYPES (States/Processes of Mind) Modes of Association
Nouns substantiveNouns adjective
VerbsPredicatesPronounsAdverbs
PrepositionsConjunctions
ConsciousnessConceptionImagination
ClassificationAbstraction
MemoryBelief
RatiocinationWill
Names of NamesRelative Terms
NumbersPrivative Terms
TimeMotionIdentity
Figure 3.17: Motives, Dispositions, and Affections in Mill’s Analysis
Actions
BodilyMental
Causes(of Pleasure/Pain)
ASSOCIATION
MOTI VES
DISPOSITIONS
AFFECTIONS
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3.1.6 Hamilton
Effectively, Hamilton leaves Reid’s conceptual system wholly intact. His
Lectures promulgate the Reidian view in full opposition to the accommodations made by
Thomas Brown to the associationist tradition. While his justifications and arguments
move in the direction of German idealism – and particularly seek to harmonize Reid with
Kant – the concepts he uses and the connections he proposes between them map cleanly
onto those of Reid with only two notable exceptions. First, and more substantively,
Hamilton (with Brown) rejects the identification of Consciousness as a separate faculty,
considering it instead to be merely the state of operation of the sentient mind.
Second, his denomination of various terms differs from that of Reid, although the
intended significance remains apparently unchanged. Such gestures reflect Hamilton’s
characteristic scholarly and systematic bent, as he tries to establish a coherent ideal
terminological system for Reid’s existing system. For example, he proposes that Reid’s
“active” powers be called instead “Conative” (Lat., pertaining to exertion or endeavor).
Similarly, he calls “understanding” the “Elaborative faculty”, and “memory” the
“Conservative faculty.” The study of each faculty is given its own designation, with the
examination of cognition being “Gnoseologia,” that of understanding or logic being
“Dianoetic,” and that of memory being “Mnemonic.” Of course, terminological changes
of this sort can be far from irrelevant. Some – such as the shift from ‘soul’ to ‘mind’ in
early psychological discourse, and that from ‘passion’ to ‘emotion’ in the same quarters –
can reflect important broader conceptual trends. However, there is little evidence that
Hamilton’s neologisms (or paleologisms) are anything but a personal idiosyncrasy in his
presentation, reflecting not a social trend but rather only the systematic urges of a
singular scholar. Thus, it seems safe to discount these modifications as largely cosmetic
here. If Hamilton diverges from the Reidian tradition in significant ways, it is in his
defense and substantiation of the system rather than in its structure.
One other seeming deviation from Reid’s development in Hamilton’s Lectures is
apparently deceptive. While Reid devoted the bulk of his Inquiry to the details of human
sensation, this subject is missing from Hamilton. However, Hamilton’s editors note that
they have elected to omit this matter from the published text as Hamilton largely
extracted it from secondary texts; since it was not original, it was considered superfluous
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to the published Lectures. [Hamilton, 1877, p.373 n.] This omission will be taken up
again in my consideration of textual and iconic structures later in this chapter.
3.1.7 Bain
Last, Bain’s system exhibits inheritance traits from both Brown and Mill. It is
here that we observe the apotheosis of the associationist school, within a new framework
that synthesizes features we have already seen current in the eighteenth and earlier
nineteenth centuries. Bain begins with a conscious self – a mind – constituted by feeling,
acting, and thinking as an inseparable ensemble. He thus echoes Brown’s fundamental
unity of human capacities, but without introducing that author’s language of affections.
The departments of mental phenomena are treated as a set of human capacities,
understood – as in Brown and Mill – as fictive. The mental attribute of feeling gives rise
to our conscious awareness, our emotions, and our sensations. Activity both results from,
and forms the basis of, volition.43 Thinking is manifested in the capacity of intelligence.
The mental system as a whole reflects a complex and dynamic interactive relation among
all these features.
Before examining the details of sensation, intelligence, emotion, and volition in
turn, Bain introduces the mind as housed in a physiological system. The brain and
nervous system are the first explanatory topics to which Bain turns in The Senses and the
Intellect. These features of human physiology are treated as primary because they are the
organs of the mind. [Bain, 1855, p.10] Thus, the entirety of our mental features can be
treated as epiphenomenal with respect to the brain and its nervous connections. Body and
mind are nonetheless firmly distinct, if inseparable, for Bain. He quotes the Edinburgh
professor, Alexander Fraser, on the opinion that “Our consciousness in this life is an
43 Bain argues for a developmental system in which spontaneous movement generatesvolition which then reciprocally serves a governor of our later actions. This is one aspectof the importance of the sensori-motor complex in Bain’s system. Movement is, for Bain,a more fundamental human function than sensation; since it is independent of externalstimuli and – at least in part – spontaneous, it is inseparably constitutive of the humanmind. Even if sensory input ultimately overrides it in the development of higherfunctions, Bain contends that the human condition begins with movement.
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embodied consciousness.” [Fraser in Bain, 1859, p.477 n.] However, he is also clear
about retaining a conceptual space for the purely mental phenomena of introspection.
Among these mental phenomena, he attends first to sensation, which class he
expands drastically from the models of his predecessors. Sensation includes, for Bain,
not just the senses of the special organs, but also an array of muscular feelings, appetites,
and instincts (see again Figure 3.18). This unusually inclusive grouping – Bain,
altogether, proposes approximately thirty distinct sensory modes - provides a rich pool of
possible distinct stimuli to the mind. The special organic senses exhibit differing degrees
of connection to the intellect, beginning with the various sensations of organic life and
proceeding upward to sight. The appetites, instead, are tied to our will and volition; and
the muscular and instinctual sensations have various connections to the emotions, will,
and consciousness.
Bain’s treatment of the intellect also establishes a direct connection between this
rational capacity and the phenomena of movement, sensation, appetite, and instinct (see
Figure 3.19). A variety of characteristic capacities – including memory, reason,
abstraction, and judgment – are identifiable in the intellectual domain, but he reduces
these all to their roots in associations of resemblance and contiguity (the latter
incorporating causation). Bain thus follows Hume most directly in his basic
understanding of what association entails. However, his development does also postulate
a second order of processes whose identification is original to him.
The compound and constructive associations that Bain superadds to the
associative principles inherited from his predecessors are both, in some sense, dependent
on these earlier principles. The compound mode of association involves no principles not
already involved in contiguity and similarity, but only the circumstance of a plural
association. Thus, Bain’s treatment of this as a distinct associative mode only formalizes
a principle common to associationist doctrine since at least Hartley. Constructive
association is a more novel contribution. These are his attempt to explain the function of
imagination in the human experience. The creation of novel ideas by the mind might
seem anomalous on a strictly associationist basis, thus lending fuel to the opposition
posed by faculty psychology. Bain explains this phenomenon as resulting from
associations forming originally in the mind; in essence, he maintains that our minds are
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capable of creating new, emergent ideas. Again, this mode operates by underlying
principles of contiguity and similarity, but in such a way that these can be perceptually
transparent even to the individual in whom they form.44
Bain’s consideration of mental systems follows each of our basic capacities to its
practical applications in society. For the intellect, this first entails an explanation of how
processes of thought – in relative isolation from the other mental departments – can result
in the observed characteristics of science as a human enterprise. In combination with
emotion, a similar process yields the characteristics of the fine arts; and, in combination
with volition, the characteristics of human industry or craft.
The emotions form as significant a part of Bain’s mental system as does the
intellect. Bain’s development here is novel (see Figure 3.20). The emotions are first
classified in terms of pleasure, pain, and neutral excitement, initiating a breakdown of the
fundamental dichotomy of the felicific calculus that had dominated discussions of
emotion up to this point (with the partial exception of Brown). Nonetheless, most of
Bain’s emotions retain a strong felicific valence and appear in the opposed pairs
characteristic of this framework. Significantly, though, some do not. In addition, Bain
recognizes differences of degree – in their characteristic quality and intensity – and
actualization (or, conversely, ideality).45 Furthermore, the emotions can be classified
according to a two-fold set of associations with, on the one hand, objects and, on the
other, actual conduct and social structures. Within this new field he has opened up for
the emotions, Bain establishes what he claims is a comprehensive natural hierarchy of
dependence among the several emotions, with some more fundamental than others. The
two most fundamental paired emotions are those of terror/confidence and the tender
emotion (love/hatred). This latter, Bain – reversing Hume – makes a recondition of self-
complacency (pride/humility), eliminating the need to postulate a separate capacity for
sympathy. More secondary are feelings of liberty/restraint, dependent on particular
44 Case in point: For Bain, aesthetic phenomena consist of “distinct and co-ordinategroups” that can be natural-historicized. [Bain, 1859, pp.252-285] In this respect, theyare only one of many compound-complex mental phenomena that emerge from processesof association.45 That is, on this last point, the emotions differ as to whether they have an actual objector an ideal one. This mimics Hume’s second use of a natural versus artificial distinctionamong the passions, but in strikingly different terms.
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circumstances; and wonder/ennui, dependent on particular sensory inputs. Feelings of
power, impotence, irascibility appear as subsidiary to liberty/restraint. The emotions of
pursuit and the intellect are yet more contingent, depending on our other capacities for
volition and thought, respectively. With all these emotions, as with the senses before
them, Bain traces out their practical outcomes and applications as an indication of the
scope of mental science.
The capacities of the will – active as opposed to intellectual powers, although the
two are inextricably linked – are developed as a dynamic system arising out of the
spontaneous movement and innate emotional susceptibility of the human organism (see
Figure 3.21). Given our physical constitution and stimuli to which we are sensitive, we
move and, in the process, register corresponding affective states. Over time, these
develop into a conscious will that is capable of resolution, deliberation, and effort with
respect to mental and physical actions. Volition, once mature thus participates in lived
experience as a partner with our thoughts and feelings. Embedded in this model of the
will is a conception of motives, means, and ends that Bain adopts wholesale from Mill.
Accompanying these features is a novel interpretation of belief. In Bain’s view, belief
arises from general consciousness as a state of preparedness to act on given evidence. It
thus, properly, has its closest reference to the will, although it has normally been treated
as a feature of the intellect. Bain’s treatment of belief famously presages that of the
American pragmatist movement led by C.S. Peirce and William James. Peirce (reliably
or not) attributed to Bain the origin of his own definition of belief as that upon which we
are prepared to act, and this position is clearly evident in the pages of The Emotions and
the Will.46 There is, of course, an intellectual role for belief; it is belief, for Bain, that
leads us to the establishment of truth (understood in inductive terms). But this type of
belief (experiential) is only one of three basic classes – experiential, emotional, and
intuitive – with mixed types also being expected. Thus, belief is a broader category in
Bain’s work than in that of his predecessors. It is also defined in different, more
functional and more specific, terms.
46 That Bain anticipates Peirce in this regard is indisputable. How this influence wastransmitted is more problematic. Best evidence suggests that Peirce was exposed toBain’s thought through the mediation of his Harvard schoolmate, Chauncey Wright. Formore detail on this issue, see Fisch [1954], Brent [1993], and Menand [2001].
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Figure 3.18: The Departments of the Human Mind in Bain’s Work
MIND(Consciousness)
Feeling ThinkingActing
ConsciousnessSensation
EmotionIntelligenceVolition
BRAIN &NERVOUSSYSTEM
Muscular Feelings
Organic Life*TasteSmellTouch
HearingSight
PainFatigueExertion
Senses InstinctsAppetites
* Sensations of Organic LifeNervous FeelingsStarvation, Thirst
Respiratory FeelingHeat/Cold
Digestive FeelingElectrical Feeling
SleepExerciseReposeHungerThirstSex
ReflexesCoordination
Emotional ExpressionGerm of VolitionVocal Expression
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Figure 3.19: Bain’s System of Associations and their Influence
INTELLECT Science
MemoryReason
AbstractionJudgment
(etc.)
(+ EMOTION)
(+ VOLITION)
Fine Art
Industry
ASSOCIATION
MovementsSensationsAppetitesInstincts
SIMILARITYCONTIGUITY
ConstructiveAssociation
CompoundAssociation
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Figure 3.20: Bain’s Classification of the Emotions and their Modes
Tender Emotion(Love/Hatred)
Terror/Confidence
EMOTIONSObjectConduct &Institutions
ASSOCIATION ASSOCIATION
Pleasure – Excitement – PainDegree (Quality, Quantity)
Actual – Ideal
Liberty/Restraint
Wonder/Ennui
Circumstance
IntellectualEmotionIrascible Emotion
Power/Impotence
Emotionof Pursuit
Sensation
Self-Complacency(Pride/Humility)
Actions Ideas
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Figure 3.21: The Will and Its Influence in Bain’s System
SpontaneousMotion
Constitution& Stimuli
EmotionalSusceptibility
Feelings
VOLITION
Thoughts
IntuitiveExperientialEmotional
Mixed
MOTIVES
ENDS
EffortDeliberationResolution
TruthBELIEFConsciousness
MEANS
3.1.8 Synopsis
Taken as a whole, this series of proposed systems of the mind displays – as I have
demonstrated – a fair amount of complexity. Before discussing apparent relationships
between systems, and trends among them, it may be useful to provide a review of some
of the salient concepts involved. These are often posed as dichotomies – forming spectra
or dimensions of variation between two poles – although this is not a universal
characteristic. Among the important dimensions with respect to which we might
compare the conceptual systems summarized above are (in no particular order): (1) body-
mind; (2) force or intensity; (3) natural-artificial; (4) simple-complex; (5) structure-
process; (6) religious-secular; (7) intellectual-active; (8) theory-practice; (9) temporality;
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(10) pleasure-pain; (11) rational-emotional (thinking-feeling).47 In identifying these as
dimensions of analysis, I do not mean to suggest that their meanings form an
unproblematic background for the discussion of the mind, nor to imply that they are used
explicitly in a dimensional sense (under the names given here) by participants in that
discussion – although they have been extracted from an analysis of the selected texts.
Instead, I am trying to locate precisely the problematic terms or characteristics under
tension in these discussions. This will mean that we should expect them alternately to
appear and disappear, to change names, to be redefined or reoriented relative to others, to
be implicitly assumed or quietly rejected. Such fluctuations demonstrate the dynamics of
the conceptual tradition. In some cases, the appearance of concepts has been relatively
constant: The use of the notion of time, understood in an effectively similar way, is a
universal in the works I have examined – but the significance of time to the discussion
has shifted nonetheless. In some cases, they appear to exhibit significant correlations
with one another: Consider, for example, the common orientations of the simple-
complex, immediate-remote, and common-abstract dimensions. Alternately, consider the
possible decoupling of force from the attributes of either pleasure or pain – that a neutral
(non-pleasant and non-painful) excitement could occur in the mind is impossible in some
proposed systems and not in others. Since what is of interest here is exactly these kinds
of dynamics, the eleven dimensions I have identified form – I think – a reasonable initial
framework within which to compare the conceptual structures of Hume et al. with one
another.
But this delineation of the conceptual space is only part of the task. Within this
space appear different conceptual clusters. Perhaps the three most central to the case at
hand is that of the self, of soul-mind, and of belief-knowledge (the latter two being
bundled notions in most of the work I have considered). There is, though, an array of
others: idea, association-suggestion, faculty, relation, sense, sensation-perception-
affection, will, passion-emotion, etc. Some of these concepts are more stable than others.
The names for the stages of mental awareness of the world (sensing, perceiving, feeling,
and so on) are in constant flux during the period in question, both in terms of positions in
47 The additional, crucial dichotomy between science and philosophy will be taken up inthe next chapter.
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the overall system and individual member sets. Association and faculty, by contrast,
stand stably opposed along an axis of process versus structure over the same time –
although their member sets are in debate. The ongoing instability of the term ‘natural’ –
which displays multiple conflicting meanings within conceptual systems such as Hume’s
– complicates the delineation of mental scientific subject-matter.
Even without differences in the established conceptual space, or the meanings of
terms, the study of the mind exhibits, in the works I have examined, fluctuations in
understood scope. Most conspicuously, perhaps, there are issues concerning the
inclusion of physiology as a proper element of the field of study. Similar issues appear
regarding the propriety of considering qualitative sensation as a precursor to mental
function. Further, the subjects of language, political economy, religion, civics, education,
and other possible practical entailments of human science are also mixed up in the
discussion. Even beyond questions of the scope of inquiry, differences in organizational
methodologies for concepts are also apparent. For instance, the natural historical
approach to cataloging mental phenomena common in the 1800’s is in sharp contrast to
the attempts to create comprehensive theoretical systems of the preceding century.
A review of the development I have given here may raise the complaint that I
have answered few questions about the specific conceptual structures I have outlined.
The full significance of each author’s work may still be an unresolved issue, and the
relationships among these systems may be hazy at best. But a full-fledged history of
conceptual evolution and the propagation of traditions was never my goal. Instead, I set
myself the more modest task of assessing the utility of conceptual structural comparisons
in revealing trends in the study of the mind in nineteenth century Britain. Since the
problem at hand here is only to identify an historical problematic within the analytical
domain of conceptual structures, I think I have been moderately successful. On the basis
of a rough comparative survey of conceptual structures, we can I think make a good case
for an ongoing process of incremental change rather than a single abrupt conceptual shift.
Furthermore, for the reader still dissatisfied with a lack of close analysis of the changing
use of concepts, my discussion in the next chapter will indicate much more clearly how
the detailed investigation of conceptual change within this historical problematic can
proceed, using the science-philosophy distinction as test case.
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A brief summary of the most important features my initial survey has revealed is
as follows: There was a common dimensional ground for discussing mental phenomena
in eighteenth century Britain; it assumed an analysis in terms of simplicity-complexity,
pleasure-pain, natural-artificial, and often the force of stimuli or activity of response.
These categories persisted in the nineteenth century, but were replaced as basic
structuring terms by such alternate dimensions as temporality and the speculative-
practical spectrum, as well as by a contingent natural historical approach. Earlier
dimensions such as the pleasure-pain spectrum of the felicific calculus were called into
question by the consideration of phenomena that could not be captured in existing terms.
Increasing secularization of the conceptual systems could be postulated, but only in a
very tentative way – as we will see in the next chapter. The association versus faculty
debate that dominated the terms of discussion in the interacting sub-traditions remained
unresolved through the examined period. Distinct changes are evident, though, in the
terms of discussion for key concepts such as belief, will, and self. A trend toward
application and popularization of the mental sciences is conspicuous. I will return to the
discussion of such broad trends within the problematic in my conclusions in chapter 5.
3.2 Expository Structures
Having examined the conceptual apparatus deployed by each of these seven
thinkers, and the developmental trajectory described by changes in these structures over
time, we can now proceed to explore the vehicles of transmission for each set of concepts
– the texts themselves. This will entail an explication of the textual structures in terms of
the scale of the major works of each author, the topical scope covered by these works,
and the organizational schemes used within the works to present the concepts as a
coherent set. Again here, as in the previous section, each author’s contribution(s) will be
elaborated individually in succession. Afterwards, I will present some thoughts about the
significance of this element of intellectual structure as indicated by the full set of works I
have examined.
In addition to the purely textual elements that form the precise matter of this
section, it will be useful to keep in mind an additional facet of the intellectual literary
tradition that cannot (in most cases) be directly discerned from the works themselves –
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the intended audience. As will emerge more clearly in later sections, where social
aspects of the study of mind are given fuller coverage, the significance of these texts is
(at least in part) dependent on the relationship between an author and his intended or
anticipated readership.48 In particular, the express crafting of texts to meet the needs or
desires of certain social groups will be an important consideration in attempting to
understand the evident structure.
The texts under consideration here fall into two fairly distinct groups according to
their intended audiences, one set being addressed primarily to the general reading public
in Britain at the time of their publication and the other being intended exclusively for the
population of the universities. In the latter case, the examples I will address both come
from the Edinburgh tradition, but represent – I think – a broader spectrum of educational
norms in British higher education. For more detail on the history of education in Britain
during the nineteenth century, see section 4.2 in the following chapter. Note also that
these audiences exhibited substantial overlap, with the university-educated class forming
a significant subset of the reading public at large. Nonetheless, the missions of the two
sets of texts still – as I will show – diverge, with the popular works being intended as
generally edifying and the university lectures being geared towards instruction in a
bounded and intentionally conceived curriculum.
As has been well documented, the development of a culture of reading and
writing in eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain involved a series of distinct stages.49
48 Recall the arguments of Skinner detailed in section 1.4.49 For an introduction to this topic, one might begin with Altick [1973], Coser [1965],Houghton [1957], Outram [1995], and Phillips [2000]. Altick provides a generaloverview of social trends and assumptions in the Victorian era, including religious,political, and artistic phenomena. Coser extensively addresses the social mechanismsunderlying modern intellectual discourse, with the first of the three parts of his workfocusing on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in France and Britain. Houghtonsurveys British intellectual (and anti-intellectual) attitudes during the middle third of thenineteenth century. Outram devotes her attention to the earlier Enlightenment period,both in Britain and on the continent, and (among many other concerns) examines changesin reading patterns evident in the eighteenth century. Phillips specifically focuses on thechanging patterns of writing history in Britain from 1740 to 1820, but some of hisdiscussion has broader relevance for changes in intellectual traditions as a whole withinthat context. My discussion of changes in the potential public audience for works on thehuman mind here is drawn, in large part, from these sources.
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The early eighteenth century coffee house provided the first public setting for a relatively
classless discussion of the issues of the day, and coincided with the rise of a culture of
newspapers and other periodicals, such as the Spectator of Addison and Steele. Along
with the beginnings of an affluent and literate bourgeois middle-class, these
developments marked the inception of a significant market for new intellectual topics,
such as those evident in the work of Hume, Hartley, and Reid. The rise of the new
vocation of ‘man of letters’, or professional writer – of whom Hume was one – was a
product of these circumstances. The reign of the coffee house culture was, however,
relatively brief, and was succeeded by a less communal culture of literary consumption
sustained by an ideology of self-improvement and the introduction of the new institution
of lending libraries. The new middle class embraced these as a mechanism for social
ascent, thereby fueling the growth of large publishing houses at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. The end of the Georgian era was accompanied by the birth of another
family of periodicals, the highly political ‘reviews’ – including the Whig Edinburgh
Review (of which Brown was an early leading light) and the radical Westminster Review
(which saw the publication of many of Bain’s early works). These publications were
pitched primarily at the upper spectrum of British society, who constituted the established
active literary market. This segment of the public had intimate connections, whether by
achievement or aspiration, to the university culture. In partial tension with this sector, the
increasing participation in literate life by those of lesser means was supported by
publications such as Chambers’ Papers for the People and institutions such as the
mechanics’ institutes.50 A certain amount of anti-intellectual spirit was associated with
the rise of these vocational training institutions, and this spirit began to migrate higher
into the social order as the universities too began to embrace specialist education.51 By
the end of the nineteenth century, the ecumenical literary environment that had begun in
the coffee houses and carried through the time of the improvers and the reviews had
largely dissipated.
50 Significantly, Bain – the son of an Aberdeen weaver – was a beneficiary of theresources of the mechanics’ institutes and a contributor to Chambers’ Papers.51 C.P. Snow’s lamentations regarding the bifurcation of humanist and scientific culturesfind the seeds of their discontent here.
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Given these developments, it should be obvious that - when considering the
potential popular audience for works on the human mind – we must factor in a dynamic
cultural context. The reading public was growing and changing throughout the period
that British surveys of the mind flourished. Hume’s audience was not Bain’s audience.
Nonetheless, certain commonalities can be found. If we ask who was following the
development of the study of mind, we must look to the upper middle-class as the central
target demographic – those persons (surely mostly male) who, if not recipients of higher
education themselves, could at least aspire to that future for their children. The adjacent
aristocracy and middle bourgeoisie (the latter multiplying in their numbers as time went
on) essentially complete the market for books such as the ones I am surveying.
Meanwhile, in the universities, another pattern can be discerned. The eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries were the period of the classical general curriculum, even as the
results of the new physical sciences became topics of more and more discussion. The
study of the mind (as moral philosophy) was a core part of this university culture.
Furthermore, while the universities became open to a broader (if still narrow) spectrum of
the British public as the period wore on, the universities were nonetheless still the
proving ground for Britain’s ruling elite, rather than a general resource for the public.
Texts geared to this end might be expected to have a different character than those being
sold to a broader, elective audience.
In what follows, I will be unable to provide much more than a glance at the
parameters involved in dealing with the relationship among author, text, and audience. I
do hope at least to demonstrate the intrinsic connection between the conceptual concerns
of the previous section and issues of textual structure. I will explore some of these
relationships further in section 3.5 below – which addresses two specific cases in which
textual changes have proven influential on the apparent concept set of an author.
Furthermore, the overview of content provided here will be a useful preface to the
exploration of cited icons in section 3.3.
3.2.1 Hume
Probably the best known – currently – of all the works I will be considering here,
Hume’s Treatise was originally published, anonymously, in two parts in 1739 and 1740.
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The sections dealing with mental phenomena were published first, while Hume’s
application of this doctrine to morals followed – with some other revisions – a year later.
In its present accepted form, the Treatise consists of three books, plus an introduction, an
appendix providing corrections to the original text, and an abstract advertising the work.
These were all approved by Hume for publication in 1740, but he never fully accepted the
Treatise as part of his oeuvre; while he acknowledged authorship in the advertisement to
his later Enquiry concerning Human Understanding [1748], he did so only to repudiate it
in favor of the new work. Nonetheless, the Treatise – as the most wide-reaching of
Hume’s works on the science of man – serves as the best evidence for the scope Hume
understood that enterprise to have. The conceptual matter of the Treatise, I maintained in
the previous section, is effectively replicated in differently argued segments within the
1748 First Enquiry, the 1751 Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, and the 1757
“Dissertation on the Passions.”52 While some minor terminological variations are evident
in the later works, the primary differences that appear are in the argument rather than the
basic terms of discussion.
The Treatise runs to some 240,000 words (about 670 pages in my edition).53 The
main body is organized according to the following plan: The Introduction discusses the
prospects for a new science of man (see Chapter 4). Book I treats the subject of
Understanding, covering – in order – ideas, impressions, association, relation, and
knowledge as well as offering a critique of previous attempts to explain the subject.
Book II deals with the Passions, first giving an explanation of their natural origins, then
dealing with two pairs of indirect passions (pride-humility, and love-hatred) and the will
and the direct passions (pleasure-pain, etc.). Book III – finally – examines justice (and
the attendent development of vice-virtue), government and law (and the development of
allegiance), and social behavior. Hume explicitly conceives the sequence of presentation
52 This approximate equation of the conceptual matter of the two deserves closerattention, since they are clearly not identical sets of documents. As a first-orderapproximation, though, the transfer of the conceptual system from the Treatise to thelater works is fairly complete, especially when viewed alongside the differences betweeneditions of Hartley (see section 3.5), Mill (section 3.6), or even Reid (section 3.2.3).53 Word count obtained from a scan of online text.
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as developmental, and we have – of course – examined the concept set as a whole in the
previous section.
A number of questions arise when considering such work specifically from the
perspective of the text. We might concern ourselves with the intended audience as
influential upon the author’s expository plan (both in structure and content).54 We might
also consider stylistic details as an important aspect of the conveyance of concepts.55
Here, I will briefly address another point: The issue of textual comprehensiveness. This
is a common point of concern for all the work I am considering.
Hume’s Treatise, I have noted, provides the fullest available treatment of his
project for a science of man. The concepts Hume utilizes form a system – an
explanatory engine – for the study of human nature. Hume’s apparatus for explaining the
mind is developed primarily in Book I, while Book II discusses passions as a higher order
phenomenon and Book III introduces an application in the domain of civics. We know,
too, that Hume performed this exposition of topics again in his later Enquiries and
Dissertation. Yet, there still remains the question of Hume’s overall intellectual project.
Does the Treatise – or Hume’s later rethinking of the matter therein, or his oeuvre as a
whole – represent the scope Hume intended for his enterprise? This, for a work
attempting to establish a new science, would appear to be an important issue. However,
at one level, it would also seem to be unresolvable: we can never be sure of whether what
an author says is what he meant to say, in its entirety. At another practical level, though,
we can examine the related body of work to look for similarities and differences.
In Hume’s case, the most important other work to explore may be the 1757 Four
Dissertations, including “Of the Standard of Taste”, “A Dissertation on the Passions” and
“The Natural History of Religion”. Most of Hume’s later career was spent writing essays
on polite subjects, and histories; only occasionally did he return explicitly to the
operational minutiae of the human mind, or the application of these operations. The 1757
54 This would lead, for example, to an examination of Hume’s ambivalence aboutexpressing his atheism to the public (creating a limit on content). Other related avenueswould be the investigation of commonly understood tropes and conventional narrativepatterns. I will not pursue these here.55 One aspect of this analytical direction, among many, is the deployment of cited icons Iwill discuss in the next section.
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essays, though, exhibit a concern with subjects that perhaps should be superadded to the
Humean conceptual schema mapped out in the Treatise. Hume’s explicit attention to
aesthetic (i.e., artistic) phenomena, and to religion as a social development, does appear
to extend Books II and III of the Treatise fairly directly, just as the Dissertation
recapitulates the original matter of Book II. Especially in light of the later inclusion of
such subjects in the discussions of the post-Humean intellectual tradition, this suggests
that some modifications of the conceptual system presented in the previous section
(3.1.1) would be necessary to do complete justice to Hume’s intent.
3.2.2 Hartley
Hartley’s original 1748 Observations likewise present, in a single work, the most
complete treatment that author gave to problems of the human mind.56 Hartley divides
his project into two Books – the former dealing with “the Frame of the Human Body and
Mind” and the latter with “the Duty and Expectations of Mankind.” In essence, Book I
deals with natural phenomena, and Book II with religion, both natural and revealed.
Hartley’s plan of the subject is thus pronouncedly different from Hume’s. This becomes
even more evident when the content is examined more closely. The four chapters of
Hartley’s first book deal in turn with (1) the theory of vibration and association, and the
general accord of our ideas and activities with these principles; (2) vibration, association,
and the several senses; (3) language and human faculties; and (4) intellectual pleasures
(or the accordance of emotions with the faculties already described. The second book,
also in four chapters, treats (1) the being and attributes of God; (2) the truth of the
Christian religion; (3) the “Rule of Life” and principles of morality and behavior; and (4)
our expectations in this world and the next. In its initial form, the Observations runs to
56 While Hartley’s work appeared eight years after Hume’s full Treatise, it should bethought of as a common participant with it in a larger ongoing intellectual discourse,rather than a direct reaction. Best evidence suggests that the full plan of Hartley’s workwas conceived in the 1730’s and written over the course of at least a decade prior to itsultimate publication. For more detail on this history, see Webb [1988].
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approximately 320,000 words, discussing the topics just cited.57 The vast majority of the
conceptual details explained in section 3.1.2 are derived from the first book.
The main difficulty in identifying the conceptual system of the original
Observation as ‘Hartley’s system’ is one of reception. As I will discuss below in section
3.5, Hartley’s intellectual reputation was significantly influenced by the publication, in
1775, of a new edition heavily edited by Joseph Priestley. This later edition is the one
that cemented Hartley’s reputation for the nineteenth century, but it eliminates much of
Hartley’s original design. As I will discuss in full later, this textual alteration had a
profound effect on the appearance of both Hartley’s conceptual system and his overall
project to later recipients.
3.2.3 Reid
Capturing the sense and scope of Thomas Reid’s work on the mind presents yet
another set of challenges. First, Reid – more than any other author I am considering –
was the founder of an identifiable school, that of Scottish Common Sense Philosophy.
This put his own intellectual work at the mercy of numerous interpreters almost from the
moment of its publication. Such fellow travelers as Beattie, Campbell, Stewart, and
ultimately Hamilton have almost as much claim to Reid’s intellectual heritage as the
author himself.58 Disentangling the practical contributions of the leader of the school
from those of his followers or interpreters not only requires close attention to the original
texts but also to the kinds of intellectual-genealogical relationships I will address in
section 3.4.
Even more basically, a second issue presents itself when we turn to the task of
extracting a ‘complete’ conceptual structure from Reid’s texts themselves. Unlike either
Hartley or Hume, Reid did not ever articulate his views in a single magnum opus.
Instead, we find his significant work on the mind divided into at least three discrete texts
produced over a three-decade period. The earlier Inquiry of 1765 has the simple plan of
57 Word count here, and all subsequent ones, obtained by random sampling of text. Thecited edition of Hartley is 970 pages in length.58 This is the same problem, in miniature, as that of separating the impact of Aristotle onseventeenth century philosophy versus that of Aristotelians. The opinions of Reid andthe opinions of Reidians were admixed in the propagation of the intellectual tradition.
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considering the powers of the several external senses. In approximately 100,000 words,
Reid proceeds through a seven-chapter structure, with one each on the five Aristotelian
senses being capped on either end by an introduction and conclusion. The body of the
work contains much on experimental results, observations, and speculations regarding the
senses, but does not introduce physiological matters. Conclusions about the relationships
of the senses to an array of mental functions are discussed, but in an anecdotal rather than
systematic fashion.
Such systematicity appears only in Reid’s later works - the two volumes of Essays
on the Intellectual [1785] and Active Powers [1788]. These divide the human mental
powers between them and develop a comprehensive treatment of this subject in
opposition to the associationist positions of Hartley and Hume. The intellectual powers
(or faculties) are given approximately 300,000 words of attention, divided into eight
essays ordered as follows: (1) “Preliminary” – methods and a division of the subject; (2)
powers of the external senses (a brief recasting of the earlier Inquiry); (3) memory; (4)
conception; (5) abstraction; (6) judgment; (7) reasoning; and (8) taste. But for the
absence of a conclusion, this is the same plan as observed in the 1765 work – a
consecutive treatment of a set of functional structures of the mind – but Reid has moved
to a higher level of analysis in making the senses only a subpart of his scope.
The 180,000-word set of Essays on the Active Powers is less linear in pattern.
Reid here submits his subject in five essays: (1) an overview of the active capacities of
man; (2) the will; (3) principles of action – mechanical, animal, and rational; (4) moral
liberty; and (5) morals. This structure has much the same cast as the later parts of both
Hume and Hartley, insofar as it is developmental toward ultimate conclusions about
society, starting with simple principles of human behavior and feeling and then moving to
the domain of activity in the world. The third essay also appears as something of a
touchstone for later synthetic treatments of the interactions of various human powers, in
both the associationist and common-sensist camps.
As for Reid’s conceptual system as a whole, the indications in the later works are
that they are intended as comprehensive with respect to matters of the mind.59 The
overlap in subject matter between the Inquiry and the second chapter of the first Essays
59 I say this with due attention to Skinner’s cautions laid out in section 1.4.
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assists in checking the congruence of these two works in terms of conceptual system.
The three works together appear to construct a fairly coherent whole.
This whole, the subject of the mind, according to Reid, shows some interesting
features. First, Reid’s move – in the earliest text – to a position intermediate between
Hartley and Hume suggests a novel strategy. Reid begins his attack on associationism in
this work by explaining the details of sensation intermediary between Hartley’s
physiology and Hume’s mentalism, thus introducing a wedge that he will later use to
defend the supposition of independent faculties: if the several senses must be viewed in
terms of the differentiated structural-functional roles they play in mediating between the
material and the mental, then we must grant the same of other human powers.60 Second,
Reid’s inclusion of a variety of subjects not seen as central elsewhere requires some
further attention. For example, following the position of the faculty of taste here versus
that in other contemporaneous work (Hume’s “Of the Standard of Taste”, among others)
would, I think, reveal more dimensions of the projects of the eighteenth century
intellectual traditions. Discussions of language - in Reid, Hartley and others – would
give similar results along a different interface.61
3.2.4 Brown
Brown’s premature death at 42 presents us with a special problem regarding his
work. The primary public vehicle Brown intended for his work was the Sketch that he
left unfinished at his death. However, the incompleteness of this short volume, coupled
with the fact that it was written in haste during Brown’s illness, make it a difficult
document to use in reconstructing Brown’s conceptual system.62 In the preceding
section, this task was greatly facilitated by cross-referencing his posthumously published
Lectures; the two works are exactly parallel in the order of their development, even
60 As an aside here, it would be interesting to pit Reid’s treatment directly against thesimilarly situated (topically) but firmly associationist development of Condillac. Mysuspicion is that this juxtaposition is exactly what Brown later uses to argue for his ownHumean-Reidian synthesis, but this would need to be demonstrated explicitly.61 And, if I am right, we can include Hume’s treatment of philosophical relations as partof this language debate in its formative stages.62 Brown’s Sketch is the shortest of the works I will consider, at about 60,000 words. Theparallel sets of Lectures are much more extended at some 670,000 words.
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through Brown’s proposed extension of the Sketch to completion – which is briefly noted
in the table of contents of that work. This one-to-one correspondence of topics was a
great aid in fleshing out the conceptual system behind the shorter text.
However, the Sketch and the Lectures, on another level, are very different works.
This is not only a matter of scale and scope (the much shorter Sketch omits the heading of
ethics treated as the second part of the Lectures, and truncates the explication of the
included topic of ‘physiology’).63 Nor is it simply a matter of organization (the Sketch
adheres to a plan of 20 chapters in 4 sections, while the Lectures are organized into 100
individual topics in sequence, apparently as an annual set of performances). It also
importantly reveals the textual dimension of audience, as I will examine more closely in
the discussion of Hamilton’s work below. While the Sketch was intended as a popular
treatment, the Lectures are pitched at a very specific live audience – attendees at the
University of Edinburgh – and were not envisioned for broader publication. The explicit
focus of the Lectures does provide certain advantages. For example, even beyond the
fact that we know to a very good approximation who Brown was addressing, he provides
us with a statement of purpose for his course on mental philosophy; his students were to
be prepared as an elite on the subject, “to be yourselves the instructors of all the
generations that are to follow you.” [Brown, 1828, v.1, p.16] On the other hand, and
partially as a result of his instructional project, the differences between the two texts in
content make it difficult to decide what aspects of the exposition form an intrinsic part of
Brown’s subject. In the case of the Sketch, we have a text largely devoid of citations (as
we will see in the next section) and also disconnected from many propadeutic concerns
that serve, by contrast, to contextualize the Lectures. The Lectures themselves must be
regarded as partly intended to transmit a particular subject matter and partly also as
embedded in a larger curriculum.64 These various features of the two texts complicate
any unitary positioning of Brown’s conceptual system. A real understanding of the
63 ‘Physiology’, in Brown’s hands, is much closer to Reid’s domain of mental phenomenathan it is to the explicit discussion of nervous and organic structures we see in Hartley orBain. We might better equate it with ‘phenomenology.’64 Whether this was a curriculum by design or default is largely irrelevant. Too, even inthe case of Brown’s advertised subject, the Lectures are only a part – the excluded matterof political economy appears among his other courses.
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significance of Brown’s works cannot proceed without reference to audiences and the
communities in which they moved.
3.2.5 Mill
James Mill’s 1829 Analysis would appear, at first glance, to be a relatively simple
case for an examination of textual structure. It is the sole major contribution of the
author to mental philosophy, and falls into an identifiable class of popular published
works on this subject during the early nineteenth century. The work is in two volumes -
totaling some 225,000 words – and covers a set of topics familiar from the earlier
contributions of Hume, Hartley, and Reid: The first volume’s 13 chapters cover, in order,
(1) sensation; (2) ideas; (3) association; (4) naming (language); (5) consciousness; (6)
conception; (7) imagination; (8) classification; (9) abstraction; (10) memory; (11) belief;
(12) ratiocination; and (13) evidence. The second volume turns to an additional twelve
chapter topics, numbered consequent to these – (14) names; (15) reflection; (16)
intellectual and active powers; (17) pleasure and pain and (18) causes thereof; (19) ideas
of pleasure and pain; (20) past and future pleasures and pains and (21) their causes; (22)
motives; (23) social acts; (24) will; and (25) intention. While maintaining the eighteenth
century tradition in terms of the basic categories and order of development, Mill – like
Brown – prominently introduces the newer element of temporality into his plan in the
later chapters. As such, the strong suggestion of the original text is that of a contribution
to an ongoing tradition – advertised as Hartleyan, but closer in written plan to that of
Reid.
However, Mill’s work – like Hartley’s – was subject to a later editorial influence
that recasts it significantly, as we will see in detail in section 3.5. The second 1869
edition of the Analysis demonstrates a different relationship to the original than did the
fate of Hartley’s Observations. While Joseph Priestley’s edition of Hartley involved
primarily the excision of large portions of Hartley’s system, Mill’s posthumous editorial
team performed a largely additive task. Leaving the elder Mill’s original text untouched,
the four editors of the 1869 Analysis added commentary – introductory, footnoted, and
appended – that brought the length of the revised work to approximately 300,000 words
(the new material thus totaling more length than Brown’s entire Sketch). As we will see,
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this editorial intervention significantly recontextualized the work, altered its patterns of
citation and argument, and introduced associated concepts that were not part of the
original structure.
3.2.6 Hamilton
Hamilton’s Lectures, like Brown’s, are transcripts of actual oral performances
given at the University of Edinburgh. In fact, the two allow a tidy comparison of
variations in the study of mind promulgated at that institution in the first half of the
nineteenth century – especially as Hamilton positions his lectures as responding directly
to mistakes in the doctrine of his predecessor Brown. Hamilton’s course of study was
evidently half the length of Brown’s, as his development proceeds as 46 sequential
lectures (against 100) in 275,000 words (against 670,000). His order of presentation,
though, is similar.65
As with Brown’s academic work, perhaps the most interesting aspect of
Hamilton’s Lectures is its origin in the oral form. We will see below, from iconic and
genealogical evidence, that Hamilton’s case suggests certain patterns in the
professionalization of philosophy. Hamilton, immersed in the academic and scholarly
concerns of philosophy for his entire life, was part of a trend towards modern disciplinary
identity in philosophy. As such, his lectures (and Brown’s too, but largely by way of
contrast) directly document the process of indoctrination into the field at the time of their
performance. The popular written texts that form the remainder of the set under
consideration here cannot have the same specific function attributed to them. Hamilton
and Brown’s respective Lectures thus serve as evidence for the kinds of specialist
community building discussed by Kuhn and Macintyre (see chapter 2).
3.2.7 Bain
If the other nineteenth century texts I have addressed begin to indicate patterns of
tradition in pursuing the study of mind in Britain, the content of Bain’s The Senses and
the Intellect and The Emotions and the Will might be taken as a synthesis of these
65 Much more work needs to be done to establish specific patterns of standard exposition,but the initial survey suggests at least that there are such patterns.
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patterns. These two works, published in 1855 and 1859 respectively, lay out a program
for the study of mind that Bain pursued for the remainder of his career.66 The two books
are almost equal in length, each running to approximately 250,000 words – making
Bain’s the longest treatment on the list save only for Brown’s Lectures. Bain presents his
subject in a now familiar order, beginning – like Brown – with matters of mental
‘physiology’, then proceeding to intellectual, emotional, and volitional subjects in
sequence. However, there are some important caveats here. First, unlike any contributor
to the subject other than Hartley (among those I have examined), Bain reinserts the actual
details of nervous function as the first topic of discussion, treating it in a 64-page
introduction before even addressing problems of sensation. In addition, Bain himself
notes that the sequence of presentation should run otherwise to describe the
developmental sequence in the human mind – since he would have the power of volition
as prior to (if convolved with) the others. This special concern with development and
practice, it would seem, reflects the increasing turn towards a philosophy of action that
began to emerge in nineteenth century studies of mind (see section 3.1).67 On the other
hand, conspicuously absent from this treatment is the concern with religious implications
evident in many of the earlier works – replaced, it would seem, by a secular utilitarian
perspective. While any purging of religion from science and philosophy was far from
66 Yet another textual comparison can be made between these two major early works andBain’s 1870 abbreviation of these matters in the textbook, Mental Science.67 Some further evidence in this regard: The scope of effect attributed to mentalassociation by Bain is generous. He spends some 130 pages describing the practicalaspects of the principle of contiguity alone. [Bain, 1855, pp.318-450] This discussionincludes both our susceptibility to association, and its effects on us. In the former vein,Bain considers differences in the degree to which contiguous association operatesaccording to personal character and capacities as well as to the circumstances into whichan individual falls. For example, he discusses at length the singular susceptibility of theyoung to education. With respect to the effects of the law of contiguity, Bain attempts acomprehensive treatment. Moving from the fundamental and simple to the contingentcomplex, he describes the consequences of this proposed law on human movement,internal and external senses (both singularly and in conjugation), emotion, volition,natural objects, vocal acquisitions, science, art, history, business and practical life, andthe sense of self. He pursues this same course with all of the other mental principles heidentifies, ultimately encompassing (insofar as he can in a single text) the entirety of thehuman world within the purview of mental science. See also, in this regard, Greenway[1973].
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complete by the 1850’s (see chapter 4), the inherent need for a religious interpretation
appears to be significantly on the wane.
3.2.8 Synopsis
This section introduced an explicit role for texts themselves, or expository trends
more generally, in structuring intellectual traditions. We have seen how texts and textual
revisions can orient and reorient the conceptual systems that they convey, in terms of
scope, content, and apparent affinities with related matter. The issue of authorial
consistency – first introduced among Skinner’s worries about the history of ideas in
section 1.4 – appears again here both within individual works and from work to work. As
we have seen, the extraction of a conceptual system from an author’s text(s) is
complicated by comparison of multiple overlapping documents, concatenation of
disparate elements within the author’s oeuvre, and editorial truncation and addition.
Distinctions of textual form and content according to intended audience are also evident;
we have considered – to some extent - the varying requirements and expectations
apparent in both oral and written formats for the general public and for academic
audiences in particular.
In terms of overall scope and content of texts, the preceding elaboration of textual
structures suggests a rough ordering of my seven authors. We can, I think, take Hume,
Hartley, and Reid to be participants in a common discussion, founded on a common set
of underlying dimensions. Reid’s common sense system used the topic of perception
through the special senses especially to drive a wedge between the mental associationism
of Hume and the physical-mechanical associationism of Hartley. Brown appears as a
synthesist of Hume and Reid, while his contemporary Mill pursued a Hartleyan program
using the expository structure of Reid. Hamilton promoted a return to Reid’s system
versus the bastardization that he saw Brown as having adopted. Bain proposed a final
synthesis weaving together Brown and Mill’s work, and reintroducing (in a Hartleyan
vein) the earlier excluded matter of nervous physiology with the benefit of new
experimental results. This is, though, only a very crude sketch that should be followed up
on with care.
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Further work in this area would help to reveal more detail on the size and identity
of the community of discussion surrounding these texts, as well as on the contextual
significance of the texts themselves. More examination of the full range of each author’s
work and of the role, within these oeuvres, of the texts considering here would be
valuable, as would further comparison with the contributions of other intermediary
figures. Such additional information would help flesh out the initial picture we have of
how content, style, and presentation within given expository traditions reflect (and
constitute part of) conceptual structures themselves. In addition, more attention to the
publication history and reception over time of different texts would help us assess the
relative importance of different works to different groups, and reveal possible patterns of
standardization and variation within different communities (especially the nineteenth
century academic culture).68
3.3 Iconic Structures
In this section and the next, I will have opportunity to do little more than gesture
toward some initial data and point out a few salient trends and problems. While issues of
conceptual and expository structure can be encapsulated in effective ways, the citation of
icons in particular works and the personal networks of relationships within which authors
operate require direct attention to particulars. Thus, an examination of these latter two
levels of structure needs to take on a different character, aiming at comprehensive
documentation of patterns of connection to produce a viable depiction. In this section
and the next, then, I will present – in largely undigested form – an initial tabulation of
information on citation practices in the works under consideration and of intellectual
genealogies of their authors (for the latter, see section 3.4). I recognize that much more
analysis would be needed to incorporate this information fully into an analysis of the
study of the mind. Here, I hope only to demonstrate its relevance to the pursuit of
important historical questions about the study of the mind in Britain in the period of
interest. More fully even than the expository and textual concerns of the previous
section, patterns of attribution and personal interaction reveal the underlying character
and development of the intellectual traditions in question.
68 For some initial forays in this area, see Duncan [1975] and Nartonis [2001].
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Iconic structure is constituted by explicit citations of authority within texts, and
patterns within these citations. I have conducted a thorough survey of primary texts in
the study of mind from Hume to Bain, and have collected the results in a series of ten
tables below. These tables, with some exceptions that will be noted, provide a
comprehensive listing of figures cited in each text, along with the location of the
reference and regard in which they are mentioned. Such data is required to conduct an
analysis of patterns of acknowledgement in the traditions in question.
3.3.1 Hume
A summary of the authors cited by Hume in the Treatise is given in Table 3.1. It
reveals Hume’s opus as largely free of explicit external reference: Only 23 citations to
non-classical authors appear in the entire original three books (with a few more in the
associated introduction and appendix).69 What is even more interesting is the identity of
the icons Hume chooses, and the light in which he makes use of them. The majority of
the citations are to ‘first tier’ figures in seventeenth and eighteenth century natural
philosophy, especially in Britain – including, as Paul Wood [1995] accentuates,
Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke (see section 2.2.3). These are usually negative
assessments on particular positions, in which Hume uses these icons as identifiable
markers for his audience. They range in specificity from a loose identification of
astronomy with Copernicus, to extended explorations of Cartesian theoretical mistakes
regarding faculties and senses. Some interesting omissions occur – Descartes is
mentioned only by indirection (‘moderns’, ‘the Cartesians’), and Newton and Bacon are
not mentioned at all (the former is named in an appended note; the latter in the 20 page
abstract at the end of the work – see section 3.3.8 for more). Furthermore, there is a
second layer of references that interestingly reveal Hume’s personal situation and social
commitments. Among icons used as markers for prominent positions under discussion,
Hume interjects a set of references to (now) obscure French figures including Malezieu,
Rollin, and La Rochefoucauld. These figures share a common set of characteristics,
69 There is a smattering of classical allusions in Hume, as detailed in part in the caption ofTable 3.1. These seem to serve mostly to establish Hume (anonymously, let us recall) asan author of ‘good taste’ and erudition to his audience.
185
having celebrity in the polite society of the French salons.70 Similarly, Hume’s stylish
reference to Joseph Addison places him in a context familiar to the English coffee house.
Table 3.1: Icons in Hume’s Treatise
ICON * REFERENCE TOPIC
George Berkeley Treatise, p.17 General ideas reducible to particulars.Nicholas de Malezieu Treatise, p.30 Existence not applicable to number.
John Locke Treatise, p.35 Bounds of perception in re: time.(Antoine Arnauld)** Treatise, p.43 Conception of length without breadth.
Isaac Barrow Treatise, p.46 Equality defined by congruity.Thomas Hobbes Treatise, p.80 Equality of points of time and space.Samuel Clarke Treatise, p.80 All things caused by others.
John Locke Treatise, p.81 “Nothing” cannot be a causeJ-F-P-G de Retz, Cardinal Treatise, p.153 World wishes to be deceived in re: many
things.John Locke Treatise, p.157 The idea of power.
Nicholas Malebranche Treatise, p.158 Secret force and energy of causes.(Aristotle)*** Treatise, p.219 ff. Mistakes re: substances, forms, accidents,
qualities, etc.(René Descartes)† Treatise, p.225 ff. Mistakes re: faculties, senses, etc.Benedict Spinoza Treatise, p.243 Modes.
Pierre Bayle Treatise, p.243 Explication of Spinoza.(René Descartes)†† Treatise, p.249 God and volition.
Nicholas Malebranche Treatise, p.249 God and volition.A.A. Cooper, Lord Shaftesbury Treatise, p.254 Uniting principle of the Universe.
Nicolaus Copernicus Treatise, p.282 Modern astronomy (passim.)(Joseph Addison)††† Treatise, p.284 Fancy and combined sensation.
François de la Rochefoucauld Treatise, p.422 Absence destroys weak passions;increases strong ones.
Charles Rollin Treatise, p.425 Commentary on justice in ancient Greece.William Wollaston Treatise, p.461 Mistake re: notion that immorality caused
by false beliefs.* Excluding sundry quotations from the classics – including Cicero, Tacitus,Lucretius, and Quinctilian – as well as authors cited in the appended 1740 Abstract to theTreatise (Bacon, Locke, Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Hutcheson, Butler, Leibniz,Malebranche, and Descartes).** Author of L’Art du Penser.*** “Antient Philosophy”† “Modern Philosophy”†† “Cartesians”††† “elegant writer” 70 They are sixteenth and seventeenth century authors involved in Jansenism and theFronde, and thus encode a certain political position for Hume among the French.
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3.3.2 Hartley
Hartley’s icons in the original Observations indicate a somewhat different pattern.
Most conspicuous is Hartley’s deference to Newton, in all manner of regards –
physiological, optical, acoustic, mathematical, linguistic, and religious. While the
Treatise may have slyly advertised Newtonianism in its titular aspiration to adhere to an
“experimental method of reasoning”, Hartley wears Newton on his sleeve in the manner
of a disciple. Other personal affinities held by Hartley are also evident among the figures
cited. One group – Gay, Winslow, Mede – reflect his religious commitments as a
dissenting Unitarian. Another – including Jurin, Pemberton, Stewart, and Byrom – are
selected from among personal associates, in medicine and other of Hartley’s natural
philosophical pursuits. Only a very few classical authors are cited (all historians).
Almost all of the iconic attributions in Book I are factual (regarding natural philosophical
subjects), while those in Book II are largely speculative (concentrating on Biblical
hermeneutics, and related concerns). The density of icons is approximately equal to that
in Hume’s work, but the patterns of referencing suggest distinct audiences for the two
authors – one a polite society of the francophone intelligentsia and the other a community
of devout English Christian men of practical affairs.
Table 3.2: Icons in Hartley’s Observations
ICON(S) REFERENCE TOPICJohn Gay. OM, Book I: p.v. Association.Edmund Law. OM, Book I: p.v. Virtue.Locke. OM, Book I: p.5. Association.Newton. OM, Book I: p.5 Vibrations.Newton. OM, Book I: p.9 ff. Optics.James Jurin. OM, Book I: p.39. Vision.“Medical writers” OM, Book I: p.42. Sense physiology.Dr. Pemberton, Newton. OM, Book I: p.89. Muscle contraction.Hooke. OM, Book I: p.94. Respiration.Stahl, Descartes, Leibniz,Newton.
OM, Book I: pp.110-111. Voluntary motion.
Newton. OM, Book I: p.133. Vibrations.Berkeley. OM, Book I: p.137. Qualities. Sight. Language of
Feeling.Newton. OM, Book I: p.157. Systematicity of colors vs. tastes.
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Newton. OM, Book I: p.192-197. Colors.Newton. OM, Book I: p.194. Music.Smith, Jurin. OM, Book I: p.204. Optics.Winslow. OM, Book I: p.245. Ligaments.Dr. Stewart. OM, Book I: p.245. Heart muscle.Winslow. OM, Book I: p.254. Intercostal nerve.Byrom. OM, Book I: p.318. Shorthand.de Moivre. OM, Book I: p.338. Statistics.Newton. OM, Book I: p.345. Differential calculus.Aristotelians, Newton,Joseph Mede.
OM, Book I: p.348. Naming and names.
Newton. OM, Book I: p.349. Proof.Aristotle, BishopWilkins.
OM, Book I: p.351. Categories of evidence.
Newton. OM, Book I: p.352. Chronology of Man.Descartes. OM, Book I: p.413. Machine organisms.Aristotle, Malebranche,Leibniz.
OM, Book I: p.511. Causes of sensation.
Bible authors. OM, Book II: p.73. Historicity of Bible.Porphyry. OM, Book II: p.77. Authenticity of Bible.William Whiston. OM, Book II: p.105. Six-day creation.Whiston, Halley. OM, Book II: p.106. Comets and Biblical flood.Dr. Mitchell. OM, Book II: p.109. Negroes and humanity as single
race.Newton. OM, Book II: p.115. Chronology of Man.Livy, Tully, Horace. OM, Book II: pp.123-124. Congruity of Roman history and
Biblical account.Butler. OM, Book II: p.145. Analogy of natural and revealed
religion.Newton. OM, Book II: p.175. Chronology of Man.Edmund Law. OM, Book II: p.186. Revelation.Whiston OM, Book II: p.399. Earth as habitation of blessed.
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3.3.3 Reid
As already discussed, Reid’s studies of the mind appeared in three volumes,
which allow for a comparison of the referencing practices of this author early and late in
his career, and with regard to various subjects. Tables 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5 – respectively -
display the sets of cited icons from the Inquiry and the 1785 and 1788 sets of Essays.
The general pattern exhibited in Reid’s work is one of sustained reference to the
philosophers of the preceding centuries, with occasional retrospect to the ancients. He
praises the exemplary work (in argumentation and establishment of matters of fact) and
exemplary humility of Galileo, Bacon, and Reid in contrast to the intellectual hubris of
the ancients. The density of citation in Reid’s work is higher than in either Hartley or
Hume, and the set of figures given iconic status is more ecumenical. Unlike either of his
contemporaries, Reid begins to display the citation practices characteristic of modern
philosophical ‘scholarship’ – a comprehensive survey of opinion on a given matter is
attempted at the outset of each topic.
The individual works display certain idiosyncrasies. Reid’s Inquiry follows this
pattern, but its subject matter requires special reference to experimental practitioners
where available. In particular, work on optics and the visual sense is heavily cited to
underpin the philosophical claims that Reid will defend regarding the significance of the
several senses. The Essays on the Active Powers are barer of references than is the
Inquiry or the Essays on the Intellectual Powers, establishing a pattern that is common to
all of the work I am considering. The topic of man’s actions and motives seems to lend
itself much more readily to free inquiry than does that of reasoning and perception.
While the latter field is, almost without exception, one that elicits generous citation and
appeal to authority, considerations of the former uniformly exhibit extended passages of
speculation and argument without annotation.
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Table 3.3: Icons in Reid’s Inquiry
ICON REFERENCE(S)René Descartes IHM: p.16 ff, p.23; p.67; etc.
Nicholas Malebranche IHM: p.16 ff.John Locke IHM: p.16 ff; p.31; p.67; etc.
George Berkeley IHM: p.19 ff; p.67.Pyrrho IHM: pp.20-21.Zeno IHM: pp.20-21.
Thomas Hobbes IHM: pp.20-21.David Hume IHM: pp.21-28; p.197 ff.
Aristotle/Aristotelians IHM: p.44; p.73; p.206 ff.Nehemiah Grew IHM: p.48.
Democritus IHM: p.73.Epicurus IHM: p.73; p.206 ff.
Joseph Addison IHM: p.89.Johannes Rudolphus Anepigraphus IHM: p.108 ff.
Johannes Kepler IHM: p.114.Adam Smith IHM: p.116; p.153 ff.Isaac Newton IHM: p.117; p.161 ff; p.218.
Nicholas Saunderson IHM: p.117 ff.William Porterfield IHM: p.123; p.132; p.142; p.146 ff; p.156 ff.
Abbé Mariotte IHM: p.141.Laurent de la Hire IHM: p.142.
Hermann Boerhaave IHM: p.142.James Jurin IHM: p.142; p.146 ff; p.160 ff; p.179.Aquilonius IHM: p.143.
William Briggs IHM: p.143; p.159; p.161 ff.Martin Folkes IHM: p.154.Dr. Hepburn IHM: p.154
William Cheseldon IHM: p.155.Francis Bacon IHM: p.200.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau IHM: p.202.Plato/Platonists IHM: p.206 ff.
Lucretius IHM: p.206 ffGalileo Galilei IHM: p.218.
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Table 3.4: Icons in Reid’s Essays on the Intellectual Powers
ICON(S) REFERENCE TOPICGalileo, Torricelli, Kepler,Bacon, Newton.
EIP: p.xxxvi. Material systems.
Descartes, Malebranche,Arnauld, Locke, Berkeley,Buffier, Hutcheson, Butler,Hume, Price, Kames.
EIP: p.xxxvii Mental systems.
Descartes. EIP: p.4. Simple words.Aristotle, Wolfius. EIP: p.4. Abuse of definitionHume. EIP: p.14. Mind & its objects.Aristotle, Epicurus. EIP: p.15. passim.Plato, Neoplatonists. EIP: p.16 ff. Ideas.Malebranche, Aristotle, Locke,Gassendi, Epicurus.
EIP: p.17. Ideas.
Hume. EIP: p.22. ImpressionsNewton. EIP: p.32; p.46 Principles & axioms.Descartes, Cartesians. EIP: p.33. Assumed principles.Locke, Hume. EIP: p.60 ff. Mental operations.Thales, Pythagoras, Euclid. EIP: p.62. Geometry.Berkeley, Hume EIP: p.64. Scepticism.Hume. EIP: p.72. Philosophy and common sense.Briggs. EIP: p.84. Anatomy.Hartley. EIP: p.86 ff. Vibrations, Newtonianism.Clarke, Leibniz, Locke. EIP: p.105 ff. God, the Soul.Galileo. EIP: p.120 Bodies.Malebranche, Plato,Pythagoras, Locke, Hume,Augustine, Neoplatonists,Bayle, Norris, Arnauld, Bacon,Luther, Calvin, Hooke,Archimedes, Aristotle,Descartes, Newton, Berkeley,Collier.
EIP: pp.123-210. Perception.
Norris, Malebranche,Descartes, Clarke, Newton,Porterfield, Berkeley
EIP: pp.216-232. Immediate perception
Leibniz, Clarke, Aristotle,Malebranche.
EIP: p.233-241. Perception.
Lévesque de Pouilly. EIP: p.248. Sensation.Hutcheson, Price, Locke. EIP: p.346 ff Moral sense.Butler, Locke EIP: p.356. Identity.Martinus Scriblerus. EIP: p.378. Syllogism.Swift, Cervantes, More. EIP: p.392. Fancy, imagination.
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Cudworth, Clarke,Bolingbroke, Abernethy, Price,Hume, Wolfius.
EIP: p.429 ff. Clarity and distinctness of ideas.
Bishop Wilkins EIP: p.505 Systematic language.Harris, Burnett (LordMonboddo).
EIP: p.509 General notions.
Aristotle, Pythagoras,Porphyry, Abelard, Occam,Luther, Hobbes, Locke,Berkeley, Hume, Newton.
EIP: pp.511-531. Nominalism and universals.
Hutcheson, Priestley, Locke,Pope, Johnson, Buffier,Shaftesbury, Fénelon.
EIP: pp.556-568. Common sense.
Locke, Watts, Malebranche,Berkeley, Pythagoras,Platonists, Aristotle.
EIP: pp.569-592. Judgement.
Cicero, Shaftesbury, Newton,Voltaire, Swift, Norris, Collier,Buffier, Oswald, Beattie,Campbell, etc.
EIP: pp.593-690. First principles.
Bacon, Pythagoras, Platonists,Newton, Descartes, Locke,Henry More, Smith.
EIP: p.691 ff. Prejudice.
Hutcheson, Addison,Akenside, Price, Epicurus,Locke, Descartes.
EIP: p.753 ff. Taste.
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Table 3.5: Icons in Reid’s Essays on the Active Powers
ICON(S) REFERENCE TOPICAristotle, Hume, Euclid, Locke. EAP: p.5-12. Motion.Hume. EAP: p.20; p.26 ff. Powers and causes.Locke. EAP: p.22 ff. Powers and causes.Plato, Aristotle, Descartes,Leibniz, Newton.
EAP: p.41 ff. Efficient causes and agency.
Malebranche. EAP: p.51. Efficient vs. occasional causes.Locke, Cicero, Hutcheson. EAP: p.57 ff. Will.“Anatomists”,“Mathematicians”.
EAP: pp.94-117. Action.
Epicurus, Kames, Butler. EAP: p.154; p.167 Benevolent and malevolentaffections.
Cicero, Peripatetics, Stoics,Hume, Pythagoreans,Hutcheson.
EAP: pp.175-186. Passions.
Hume, Epicurus, Plato,Pythagoras, Cicero,Shaftesbury, Hutcheson.
EAP: pp.222-237. Duty and sense of duty.
Shaftesbury. EAP: p.257. Virtue.Abbé Raynal. EAP: p.273. Souls.Spinoza. EAP: p.281. Free agency.Hume. EAP: p.281. Cause.Descartes. EAP: p.324. Man-machine.Clarke. EAP: p.325. Attributes of God.Leibniz, Hume, Clarke,Augustine.
EAP: p.326-346. Necessity.
Grotius. EAP: p.383. Natural law.Epicureans, Peripatetics, Stoics,Hume, Cicero, Johnson.
EAP: pp.386-481. Morals and justice.
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3.3.4 Brown
Brown’s Sketch returns to a pattern of fairly sparse reference, as shown in Table
3.6. Significantly, his list of icons is little changed from the standard set established by
commonalities among Hume, Hartley, and Reid. The only significant additions are from
the three primary traditions upon which Brown drew – Hume, Reid and the common
sense school, and Condillac. Brown is the only nineteenth century author in my study
who makes substantial reference to Hume. The evidence from Brown’s Lectures
indicates a much more strongly ‘iconic’ pattern, in line with that I will discuss for
Hamilton in 3.3.6 below.
Table 3.6: Icons in Brown’s Sketch
ICON(S) REFERENCE TOPICGeorge Berkeley. Sketch: p.113. Skepticism.Berkeley. Sketch: p.115. Spirit.Thomas Reid. Sketch: p.123. Peculiarity of sense of touch.Reid. Sketch: pp.124-125. Mental tendencies.Reid Sketch: p.127. Object-percipient relationship.Aristotle/Aristotelians,Reid, Descartes,Malebranche, Berkeley.
Sketch: pp.130-131. Image theories.
Reid, Hobbes, Descartes,Locke.
Sketch: p.132. Reid’s mistakes regarding the“way of ideas”.
Reid Sketch: p.133. Objects.Reid, Scholastics,J.P. de Crousaz.
Sketch: pp.136-143. Ideas.
Hume, Pyrrhonians Sketch: p.142-143. Skepticism.Condillac, “FrenchMetaphysicians”.
Sketch: p.178. Conflation of differentfeelings.
John Locke. Sketch: p.179. Appeals to Locke’s authority.Reid. Sketch: p.179. Varieties of feeling.Hume, Aristotle,Scholastics.
Sketch: p.191. Association.
Hume. Sketch: p.192. Contiguity.Dugald Stewart. Sketch: p.217. Permanence.Hume. Sketch: p.225; p.227. Contiguity.Reid. Sketch: p.251. Habit.Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume,Campbell, Stewart.
Sketch: p.267; pp.282-284 Nominalism re: universals.
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3.3.5 Mill
Mill’s original Analysis is quite similar to Brown’s in its iconic base, as might be
expected from their common education under Dugald Stewart at Edinburgh. If anything,
it shows an even more modern bias, focusing heavily on Locke and Reid and a handful of
other eighteenth century figures including Hume and Hartley. Acknowledgements of
Newton and Bacon are nowhere evident. Salient among Mill’s icons are a set of linguists
(Tooke, Gilchrist, Harris) and isolated but significant figures in aesthetics (Alison) and
medicine (Gray, Turner). Also evident – for the first time in this study – is the beginning
of a practice of excerpting extensive passages from other authors. This is especially
characteristic of icons called upon for expert specialist testimony; Mill does not merely
cite figures such as Gilchrist and Alison, he includes their position wholesale as part of
his own development.
Table 3.7: Icons in Mill’s Analysis
ICON(S) REFERENCE TOPICAdam Smith. Analysis, Book I: p.27 Feeling.Thomas Reid. Analysis, Book I: p.27 Sense perception.Thomas Hobbes. Analysis, Book I: pp.31-32 n. Constant sensation.Thomas Brown. Analysis, Book I: p.52. Serial phenomena.Dugald Stewart. Analysis, Book I: p.59. passim.Brown. Analysis, Book I: p.75 Exclusivity of perceived
opposites.David Hume. Analysis, Book I: pp.79-80. Associations.David Hartley. Analysis, Book I: p.81. Duplex ideas.John Locke. Analysis, Book I: p.83. Words and things.Horne Tooke. Analysis, Book I: p.149 Prepositions.John B. Gilchrist Analysis, Book I: p.149. History of “of”Stewart Analysis, Book I: pp.183-184. Imagination.Victor Cousin Analysis, Book I: p.186. Classification.James Harris Analysis, Book I: pp.191-194. Universals.Cudworth, Aristotle,Archimedes, Plato,Euclid, Heraclitus,Pythagoras.
Analysis, Book I: pp.194-201. Immutable essences.
Horne Tooke Analysis, Book I: p.214. Abstraction and language.Brown. Analysis, Book I: p.231. Analysis of mind.Abbé de Condillac Analysis, Book I: p.254. Formation of thought.Brown. Analysis, Book I: pp.287-289. Formation of belief.Stewart. Analysis, Book I: p.289. Belief as sui generis.
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Locke. Analysis, Book I: pp.290-295. Belief, association, and error.Hartley. Analysis, Book I: p.309. Complex ideas.Aristotle. Analysis, Book I: p.309. Reasoning and syllogisms.Brown. Analysis, Book I: p.313. Mental science, laws, and
analysis.Hobbes. Analysis, Book II: p.1. Mental terminology.Brown. Analysis, Book II: p.37. Causation as fictive.Locke. Analysis, Book II: p.88. States of mind in sensing.Locke. Analysis, Book II: p.90. Privative terms.Locke. Analysis, Book II: p.98. Mixed modal ideas.Reid. Analysis, Book II: p.104. Memory and time.Harris. Analysis, Book II: p.109-115. Time.Aristotle, Themistius. Analysis, Book II: p.115 n. Time.Reid, Harris. Analysis, Book II: p.116. Time.Berkeley. Analysis, Book II: p.117 n. Time and abstraction.Locke. Analysis, Book II: p.136. Reflection.Richard Whately Analysis, Book II: p.141. Simple principles.Archibald Alison. Analysis, Book II: pp.192-208. Taste and pleasure.Althelme Richerand. Analysis, Book II: p.263. Unconsciousness and constant
impressions.Zachary Gray, DanielTurner
Analysis, Book II: p.269 Placebos.
Smith. Analysis, Book II: p.270. Associations of pain.Stewart. Analysis, Book II: p.277. Relation of muscular action to
sense and idea.Reid. Analysis, Book II: pp.278-279. Objects of will and volition.
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3.3.6 Hamilton
The set of icons called upon in Hamilton’s Lectures is an outlier among the
several sets being examined in this section. It would be a daunting task to catalog the
citations scattered throughout the work, as Table 3.8 attempts to demonstrate. In
Hamilton’s first three lectures alone (out of 46 in total), he cites more figures than in any
other author’s single text. A similar pattern persists through the rest of the work. Even
more breathtaking is the range of these citations. Hamilton’s citation pattern almost
suggests an attempt to register all opinions ever raised on a given topic. His attention
moves from classical Greek and Roman authors of varying degrees of obscurity, to
medieval Scholastics, to British, French, and German figures from the seventeenth
century forward to his own day. Given the restricted subject matter of the introductory
lectures from which this sample is culled, it would be difficult to further identify patterns
of inclusion and exclusion by topic. Two other brief points are worth registering though:
One is that this iconic pattern is specific to a set of oral university lectures, while the
others we have seen are from popular treatises. It is less incongruous when compared to
the pattern in Brown’s Lectures – which displays a much greater citation density than his
Sketch. Such divergences may be characteristic of audience expectation (or expectations
by the author of the audience) in the developing academic culture of philosophy. Second,
Hamilton continued the practice of excerpting from the work of others we saw in Mill.
The scope of such excerpts ranges from brief quotation of poets (used as informed
opinion on a given topic) to extraction of entire passages on physiology.71
71 Hamilton’s sources for these latter excerpts were apparently Dr. Thomas Young’sLectures on Natural Philosophy [1807], and John Bostock’s An Elementary System ofPhysiology [1825-1828/1836/1844]. His editors note that they have excluded theseexcerpts from the corpus of lectures as printed posthumously. This demonstrates anotherdanger inherent in using the textual artifact as representative of an intended conceptualsystem.
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Table 3.8: Icons in Lectures I through III of Hamilton’s Lectures
ICON(S) REFERENCE TOPICFriedrich Schelling Lectures: p.5. “Bread and Butter Sciences.”Seneca. Lectures: p.7. Insignificance of known truths.Virgil. Lectures: p.7. Folly of attempting to obtain
total knowledge.Blaise Pascal. Lectures: p.7. Humanity as seeking.Pascal. Lectures: p.8. Search for truth.Manilius, Alexander Pope. Lectures: p.8. Orientation to future.Pythagoras, Cicero, Plato,Matthew Prior, Aristotle.
Lectures: p.8. Search for truth.
Aristotle, Aquinas, DunsScotus, Malebranche,Lessing, Von Müller, JeanPaul Richter.
Lectures: p.9. Philosophy as activity.
Burke. Lectures: p.10. Introspection.Francis Bacon. Lectures: p.13 Cultivation of the higher
faculties in man.Aristotle. Lectures: p.14. Utility.Favorinus. Lectures: p.17. Greatness of man.Pope, Thomas Brown. Lectures: p.18 Study of man and mind.Plato. Lectures: p.21. Man an intelligence not an
organism.Henry More. Lectures: p.23. Materialism equals atheism.Aristotle, Plato. Lectures: p.26. Wonder.Newton, Laplace,Copernicus, Kepler,Gassendi.
Lectures: p.26 Astronomy.
Hartley, E. Darwin,Condillac, Bonnet.
Lectures: p.27 Problem of mind greater thanthat of astronomy.
Plato, Kant, Jacobi, Reid. Lectures: pp.27-29 Importance of problem ofmind.
Aristotle. Lectures: p.32. Belief precedes learning.Pythagoras, Cicero,Heraclides Ponticus,Diogenes Laertius,Sosicrates, Hericlides,Sophists, Heroditus,Quintilian, Epictetus.
Lectures: pp.32-35. Origin of term ‘philosophy.’
Campbell Lectures: p.35. Association of philosophy withpride.
198
Hobbes, Leibniz, Wolff,Kant, Decartes, Condillac,Fichte, Schelling, Hegel.
Lectures: pp.35-36. What is philosophy?
Aristotle, AmmoniusHermiæ, Cramer,Pythagoras, Plato, Homer,Galen, Le Clerc.
Lectures: pp.36-40. Ancient definitions ofphilosophy.
Bacon, Wolff, Aristotle. Lectures: p.41. Knowledges (causal,factual, etc.).
Protagoras, Boethius. Lectures: p.43. Man the measure of allthings.
Cousin. Lectures: p.44. Departments of philosophy.Hegel, Aristotle. British corruptions of the
term ‘philosophy.’
3.3.7 Bain
Bain’s work too exhibits an increase in iconic citation over that of previous
generations, but in a very directed manner. Bain retains the sparse set of iconic figures in
the study of mind that was established by Brown and Mill. These are restricted largely to
the introductory matter of each of Bain’s four books within the two-volume corpus of The
Senses and the Intellect and The Emotions and the Will. Further, he adds to this set a
long list of informants on specific matters of fact – in effect, expert witnesses to
particular observations. These expert icons appear in highest density in the physiological
portions of Bain’s work, often in conjunction with extended excerpts from the cited text.
Many such authors – who, it will emerge, are often personal associates of Bain (see
section 3.4) – are cited repeatedly. New appropriate experts appear with each new
subject – the nervous system, the senses, elocution, linguistic structure, classification
practices, etc. Overall, the pattern is toward citation of ‘data’ – practical evidence –
rather than argument. Even the poets cited by Bain are referenced as exhibiting linguistic
practice rather than for their substantive statements as poetry (as would have been the
expected case in Hamilton’s work). The direct comparison of Hamilton and Bain in
terms of their icons suggests two men living in distinct social and professional milieus.
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Table 3.9: Icons in Bain’s The Senses and the Intellect
ICON(S) REFERENCE TOPICNewton/Newtonians S&I: p.3. Observation of phenomena.Thomas Reid, ThomasBrown, Dugald Stewart,J.D. Morell, FriedrichBeneke, William Sharpey,Jones Quain.
S&I: pp.6-8. Division of mental phenomena.
Sharpey, Quain, CharlesBell, William Carpenter,Robert B. Todd, WilliamBowman.
S&I: pp.11-50. Brain physiology.
Sharpey, Quain. S&I: p.68. Muscle tissue.Bowman. S&I: p.69 ff. Muscle fibers.Sharpey. S&I: pp.85-86. Muscular sensibility.Sir William Hamilton. S&I: p.117 n. Locomotive faculty vs. muscle
sense.Todd, Bowman. S&I: p.120; p.130;
p.135.Muscle sense. Heat and cold.Nutritive sensation.
Quain. S&I: p.136. Digestion.Todd, Bowman. S&I: p.141. Mechanisms of disgust.Wagner. S&I: p.144. Intestines.Michael Faraday, BAAS. S&I: p.146. Electrical sensation.Reichenbach. S&I: p.147. Magnetism.Braid. S&I: p.147. Mental states.Gregory, Gmelin. S&I: p.149. Organic chemistry and tastes.Quain, Todd, Bowman. S&I: p.150 ff. Papillae of tongue.Gmelin, Longet. S&I: pp.157-158. Tastes.Gmelin, Gregory, Graham,Bunsen, Longet, Linnaeus,Cabanis.
S&I: pp.159-170. Smells.
Todd, Bowman, Quain,Sharpey, Carpenter.
S&I: pp.171-195. Touch.
Toynbee, Quain, Todd,Bowman, Wollaston,Müller, Wheatstone.
S&I: p.195-213. Hearing.
Quain, Wharton Jones,Soemmering, Todd,Bowman, Jacob, Crampton,Sharpey, Volkmann,Müller, Hamilton,Wheatstone, Daguerre,Newton.
S&I: pp.213-248. Sight.
Müller. S&I: p.252. Hunger.
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Carpenter. S&I: p.259. Sensori-motor response.Müller. S&I: pp.264-275. Muscular movement.C.Bell, Quain. S&I: pp.275-288. Facial expressions.Müller. S&I: pp.289-292. Spontaneity and volition.Jean Buridan. S&I: p.290. Balancing of stimuli.Thomas Reid. S&I: pp.292-293. Instinctiveness of voluntary
motion.Quain. S&I: pp.299-303. Vocal anatomy.Müller, Willis. S&I: pp.304-305. Simulation of the voice.Alexander Melville Bell,Carpenter, Kempelen,Arnott.
S&I: pp.307-309. Articulation and elocution.
Stewart, Reid, Hamilton. S&I: pp.316-317. Habit.Aristotle. S&I: p.317. Association.Hamilton. S&I: p.318. Contiguity.Carpenter. S&I: p.326. Association as growth or
connectivity of brain cells.Müller, E. Darwin,Spinoza.
S&I: p.335. Sensory associations.
Braid. S&I: p.336. Mimicking of sensation.Hamilton. S&I: p.368. Against extension as formed by
associations of touch and sight.Reichenbach, SamuelBailey, Samuel Johnson,George Berkeley, JamesMill, Wheatstone.
S&I: pp.370-379. Perception of a material world.
Reid. S&I: p.380 n. Vision and distance.Wheatstone. S&I: p.382. Solidity.Sir David Brewster, “Dr.Serres of Paris.”
S&I: p.384. Line of sight.
Braid. S&I: p.386. Mesmerism and association.Hamilton. S&I: p.392 n. Inverse nature of subjective
sensation and objectiveperception.
Archibald Alison. S&I: pp.398-401. Beauty.Reid. S&I: p.402. Instinctiveness of voluntary
motion.Euclid. S&I: p.437. Geometry.Hamilton, Aristotle. S&I: p.451. Similarity, Resemblance,
Repetition.Humphrey Davy. S&I: p.494-495. Chemistry forwarded by
intellectual associations ofresemblance.
Linneaus. S&I: p.496. Classification of flowers.Goethe, Oken. S&I: p.497. Plants and flowers.Owen S&I: p.498. Similarity of back and head
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bones.Plutarch, Charles Knight,George Grote.
S&I: p.504. Parallels in history.
Aristotle, Vico,Montesquieu, Condorcet,Millar, J. Mill.
S&I: p.507. Comparison of social andpolitical institutions.
Priestley. S&I: p.508. Combustion and rust.Newton, Bacon. S&I: p.511. Similarity and “Law.”Kepler. S&I: p.517. Induction yielding geometrical
relations.Black. S&I: p.518. Latent heat.J.S. Mill. S&I: p.520. Logic and method.Benjamin Franklin. S&I: p.522. Thunder and lightning.Aristotle, Hooke. S&I: p.524. Analogies.James Watt. S&I: p.525. Steam engines.Burke, Milton. S&I: p.530. Oratory.Bacon. S&I: p.532. Illustrative comparison.Chaucer, Milton,Shakespeare, Burke,Homer, Aeschylus.
S&I: p.533 ff. Literary genius.
Michelangelo. S&I: p.536. Intellectual suggestion in art.Johnson. S&I: p.555. Cliché.Newton. S&I: p.556. Associative leaps.Burke. S&I: p.558. Association from emotional
character.Aristotle. S&I: p.565. Contrariety.Franklin. S&I: p.571. Electricity and constructive
association.Southey. S&I: p.576. Poetry and constructive
association.Hobbes. S&I: p.582. “Mountain of gold” example of
construction in vision.Michelet, Grote. S&I: pp.586-587. Special emotional affinities.Milton. S&I: p.589. Concreting the abstract.Carlyle. S&I: p.591. Evocative description.Napoleon. S&I: p.594. The ‘political man’ a
constructed class.J.Mill, Stewart. S&I: p.600 n. Imagination versus science in
re: construction.
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Table 3.10: Icons in Bain’s The Emotions and the Will
ICON(S) REFERENCE TOPICStewart. E&W: p.2. Active powers trump
intellectual ones.J.S. Mill. E&W: p.6. Concomitant variation.Nicol; Lindley, JamesSmith; Charles Darwin.
E&W: p.23 n. Classification in, respectively,mineralogy, botany, zoology.
Paley. E&W: p.25. Pleasure vs. pain.Grote. E&W: p.48. Morals in Greek history.Bacon. E&W: p.49; p.70. Corruption of science by
emotion.Carlyle, Aristotle, Faraday. E&W: pp.70-71. Wonder in science and nature.C. Bell. E&W: p.76. Expression of fear.Shakespeare. E&W: p.92. Pleasure in tragedy.Hobbes, J. Mill. E&W: p.110. Family.Kitto. E&W: p.123 n. Deafness in re: sublimity.Wordsworth. E&W: p.123 n. Nature as “clothed with being.”Stewart. E&W: p.145 n. Emotion of power.Chalmers. E&W: p.177. The “inherent misery of the
vicious affections.”Dickens. E&W: p.179. Irascibility of character, Quilp,
in The Old Curiosity Shop.Michelet. E&W: p.179 n. Execution of Robespierre.Edward Young E&W: p.179 n. Poetic treatment of revenge.Bible (Job) E&W: p.192. Interest amongst monotony.Tennyson. E&W: p.194 n. Pursuit as emotional.Dalton. E&W: p.201. Discovery, atomic theory.J. Mill. E&W: p.201 n. Classification.J. Mill, Howard, Bentham. E&W: p.218. Philanthropy and sympathy.Johnson. E&W: p.230 n. Definition of genius.James F. Johnston. E&W: p.235-236. Mental effect of narcotics.Sterne, Byron,Wordsworth, Southey.
E&W: p.246. Sentiment in literature.
Stewart. E&W: p.250 n., 254 n., 256 n. Aesthetics.Burke. E&W: p.257 n. Aesthetics, taste.Stewart. E&W: p.276 n. Aesthetics, sublimity.Ruskin. E&W: p.278. Art criticism.Hobbes. E&W: p.288 ff. Society and morality.Stewart. E&W: p.288 n. Moral sense.Whewell. E&W: pp.291-298. Moral sense.Smith. E&W: p.302. Moral sentiments.Bentham, Paley. E&W: p.303 n. Utilitarianism.J. Mill. E&W: pp.306-307; p.314 n. Utility and morality.John Austin. E&W: p.322 n. Duty.
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Wardlaw, Butler, Stewart,Cudworth, Mackintosh.
E&W: p.323 n. Ethics and theology.
Appolonious Rhodius. E&W: p.369. Attention (in Jason and theArgonauts).
Chalmers. E&W: p.415. Altering of emotional bias byintellect.
Braid. E&W: p.434 Will and mesmerism.Grote. E&W: p.462. Temperament of Greeks.Franklin. E&W: p.462 ff. Moral algebra.Cicero. E&W: p.468. Virtue.Herschel, Brown. E&W: p.472-473. Causation.Fraser. E&W: p.477 n. Consciousness embodied.Goethe. E&W: p.485. Exemplar of emotional conflict.Samuel Bailey. E&W: p.541 n. Motives, law, and political
economy.J.S. Mill. E&W: p.542 n. Zeno’s paradox.
Lord Brougham. E&W: p.566 n. Moral accountability.J.S. Mill. E&W: p.587 n. Method, proof, and belief.Fleming, Stewart,Hamilton, Hobbes.
E&W: pp.600-615. Consciousness.
Hamilton, Ferrier. E&W: pp.641-645. Subject and object, cognitionand relativity.
3.3.8 Synopsis
This section has been too brief to do more than advertise a few trends evident in a
wealth of data on iconic structure within my set of texts. A thorough survey would
develop the directions I have indicated by attending closely to the valence, subject,
extent, and intended relevance of the several sets of icons; then provide a more
systematic treatment of trends by introducing further comparisons. Documenting
transitions and patterns in citation practice more clearly could be revealing on a number
of fronts: First, it could provide a test of contentions we saw in chapter 2 about the role
of texts and icons in the special disciplinary institutions of science and philosophy.72 For
72 Kuhn (section 2.1), Macintyre (section 2.2.4), Cunningham (2.4.3), and Collins (section2.4.5) all suggest that part of the distinction between science and philosophy is bound upin differential attitudes towards their own history and the role of personal authority in thathistory. If science can be partly characterized by a ritual forgetting of the past (Kuhn), orphilosophy accentuates its origins and a perennial problematic (Macintyre), or naturalphilosophy secularized becomes science (Cunningham), or science emerges as a ‘rapiddiscovery machine’ (Collins), evidence from iconic structures should help to discern suchpatterns.
204
example, if the iconic structures apparent in Bain and Hamilton are indicative of an
incipient split between a ‘scientific’ culture on Bain’s side and a ‘philosophical’ culture
on Hamilton’s, we should be able to make further sense of this split by closer
comparative analysis. Second, of course, direct iconic reference is one marker of the
activity of intellectual communities. While certainly only one among many modes of
tracing a discourse, citation does help establish connections for further elaboration of the
tradition.73 Third, and relatedly, we may be able to map iconic patterns onto particular
expected audiences for the work – as with Hume’s connection to polite society, and
Hartley’s to Christian enthusiasm – thereby enriching our understanding of secondary
affinities of these intellectual traditions. Fourth, the cursory examination here calls into
question post facto discussions of ‘Newtonian’ and ‘Baconian’ iconic traditions.74 Fifth,
another similar issue can be traced by examining the iconic reputations of the figures in
my selected group; in other words, how do later figures refer to earlier ones?75 Sixth,
73 Lack of an explicit reference, for example, leaves open the possibility of implicitreference or assumed influences understood to be obvious to the target audience incontext (or of local codes for registering influence).74 The eighteenth century figures under consideration here – Hume, Hartley, and Reid –have all variously been characterized as Newtonian or Baconian, either in practice or inrhetorical affiliation. For example, we might consider Hartley non-Newtonian inprojecting unobservable particles (vibrations) and arguing for hypotheses on the basis ofexplanatory power rather than evidence. [Walls, 1982] The same accusations could bemade of Hume regarding the power of sympathy, but he is more often characterized asattempting to extend Newton’s program to the problem of human nature. Too, Hartleymight also be called the ultimate Newtonian in following the master in alchemical andmystical matters as well as in natural philosophical methodology. Certainly, Hartleyreferences Newton far more than his other contemporaries, and in wider regard – as wehave already seen: the single explicit reference to Newton in Hume’s Treatise is anallusion to “Newtonian philosophy” in the Appendix that Hume added to indicatedesirable revisions to the original text [Treatise, p.639], and Reid makes severalreferences to Newton, but only to method. Further, rather than considering Reid asprimarily a Newtonian thinker, Harris [2003] characterizes him as propounding an“extreme form of Baconianism.” It would be impossible here to trace and analyzeNewton’s record as icon within these several communities, but it is a good first case forany proposed iconic analysis.75 I have noted the relative obscurity of Hume throughout the period as an explicit icon –Brown alone makes him a central figure. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth century,Hume appears as a lightning rod for common sensists and religious apologists (e.g.,Boswell) but not as an icon for associationists. This situation in the community ofintellectuals, however, is already contradicted by the last quarter of the nineteenth century
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changing practices of citing and excerpting form part of the history of technical writing.76
Finally, anticipating the next section, more connection of the data presented here to
biographical information (the occupational identity of cited figures and their other
relationships with the citing author) would be of value in understanding the dynamics of
nineteenth century intellectual networks.
3.4 Genealogical Structures
I am introducing genealogical structure here as similar to Collins’ networks of
intellectual influence but, on the one hand, narrower in the types of influence accepted
and, on the other, more inclusive in the communities explored. Both these differences
point to suppositions about the structure of the communities Collins examines. In the
former regard, Collins makes assumptions about shared tradition that allow him to
introduce evidence of intellectual influence beyond that obvious from personal
interaction. Similarly, he introduces positive and negative inflections into his networks
according to whether their intellectual interactions of a particular individual are cordial or
conflictive. In the latter regard, he restricts his networking analysis to within fairly
circumscribed intellectual bounds. Thus, the relationships he traces run from – for
example – philosopher to philosopher, while ignoring the connections that might exist
between a philosopher and, say, a chemist.
My development here will be more restrictive in the first sense and more open in
the latter. I will consider only direct personal associations that existed between the
figures under discussion and their predecessors, contemporaries, and successors.
However, I will make no distinctions in these associations among figures from various
backgrounds, but will instead take personal relationships as all on a par with one another
in their possible influence on the thinkers involved.
by admonitions that we not neglect the work of Hartley and Reid in favor of an exclusiveadmiration of Hume [Robertson, 1877, pp.358-359]. How this reversal of fortune cameto pass is a matter for further investigation.76 Excerpting appears to be as characteristic a practice of the mid-nineteenth century aswas sweeping allusion to icons (the figure as representing a given view) in the eighteenthcentury. To begin a consideration of problems of this kind, one might see Grafton[1999].
206
As a final introductory note, I should also advertise the conspicuous dependence
of this kind of analysis on available biographical information. This is perhaps the salient
weakness of my initial treatment – although I maintain that my evidence is still enough to
raise serious doubts about Collins’ project. The lives and personal associations of some
of the subjects of my study – Hume, for example – are well documented, but others are
more shadowy. The prospect of unearthing necessary information for these others is
made brighter by the writing culture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; the
prevalence of correspondence, and of biographical and autobiographical activity, makes
the problem of reconstructing genealogical structures – in my sense – easier. However,
much further research is required for a comprehensive comparison. As a result, my
conclusions in this section will be largely negative in character, identifying salient
problems and concerns more than presenting a definitive portrait.
3.4.1 Hume
An initial listing of Hume’s important associates is given in Table 3.11. It shows
Hume embedded in an extensive intellectual-genealogical network that largely matches
that identified by Collins [1999] but is more inclusive. Hume’s primary genealogical
affinities appear to be with ‘first-generation Newtonianism’, with French salon culture,
and with an insular Scottish intellectual community. The Newtonian heritage was
transmitted to Hume by a group of Edinburgh professors, styling themselves the
‘Rankenian Club,’ who served as his primary instructors. The influence of Hume’s time
in France, both early and later in his career, is evident in a series of personal and
corresponding interactions with prominent figures in the French Enlightenment. Hume is
alone among my subjects in these extensive connections with French culture, which also
appear allusively in his writing. Finally, among his Scottish contemporaries, Hume
maintained an extensive correspondence and participated in several of Edinburgh’s more
prominent natural philosophical clubs. His associates, by and large, were ‘men of letters’
– literary practitioners of one stripe or another – whatever else their formal occupation
may also have been.
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Table 3.11: Figures in Hume’s Intellectual Genealogy77
ASSOCIATEDINDIVIDUAL
or ORGANIZATIONOCCUPATION(S) RELATIONSHIP
Robert Wallace* Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)Laurence Dundas* Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)
William Scot* Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)Colin Drummond* Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)Robert Stewart* Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)James Gregory* Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)William Law* Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)
Charles Mackie* Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)Henry Home, Lord Kames Aristocrat, Writer Friend, Relative
Adam Ferguson Writer Friend, ColleagueP-H Thiry, Baron d’Holbach Writer Correspondent
Thomas Reid Minister, Professor,Writer
Correspondent
Charles de Secondat,Baron de la Brèdeet de Montesquieu
Writer Correspondent
Francis Hutcheson Professor, Writer CorrespondentAdam Smith Economist Friend
Edward Gibbon Historian FriendJean-Jacques Rousseau Polymath Friend
A-R-J Turgot Economist, Writer FriendF-J de Beauvoir,
Marquis de ChastelluxSoldier, Writer Friend
Denis Diderot Writer,Encyclopedist
Friend
Jean-le-Rond D’Alembert Writer,Encyclopedist,Mathematician
Friend
Duclos Writer FriendHelvétius Writer Friend
Madame de Bouffiers Aristocrat, SalonHostess
Friend
Allan Ramsay Painter FriendPhilosophical Society of
Edinburgh-- Member
Select Society -- MemberPoker Club -- Member
* Members of the so-called “Rankenian Club” of Edinburgh.
77 Biographical information obtained from McCosh [1875], and Mossner [1980].
208
3.4.2 Hartley
Though a close contemporary of Hume’s, David Hartley’s pattern of personal
associations – his genealogy as an intellectual in society – appears quite different. While
exposed to ‘first generation Newtonianism’ in his Cambridge years to an equal extent as
Hume at Edinburgh, his later social life followed a different path. Hartley’s main
associates can be found in medical, religious, and natural philosophical circles. As a
practicing physician, he corresponded or interacted with his professional associates in the
course of business. This affiliation also put him in touch with a variety of apothecaries,
medical chemists, and surgeons. His dissenting religious beliefs led to another strong set
of associations with like-minded figures, who we might also identify as the core audience
for whom Hartley wrote. The affinity between intellectual inquiry and theological
doctrine of the period is reflected in some of the societies of which Hartley was a member
– the Society for the Advancement of Learning and the Society for the Promotion of
Christian Knowledge. His other conspicuous organizational association – the prestigious
and central Royal Society of London – places him in the midst of the natural
philosophical discussions of the day.
These several networks of influence suggest, for Hartley, the archetypal character
of a ‘Christian virtuoso’ – as viable a social identity of the day as was Hume’s image as
‘man of letters’ in polite society, but one quite distinct from it. We might also note that
Hartley’s genealogical pattern (see Table 3.12) appears to correlate well with aspects of
other structures; the concepts he uses, the form of his text, and the icons he cites all
reflect a figure embedded in Newtonianism of all stripes (natural philosophical,
physiological, religious, alchemical, etc.) as well as in the radical religious trends of the
Enlightenment.
209
Table 3.12: Figures in Hartley’s Intellectual Genealogy78
ASSOCIATED INDIVIDUALor ORGANIZATION OCCUPATION(S) RELATIONSHIP
John Warham Tutor Teacher (Cambridge).William Whiston Lecturer Teacher.
Nicholas Saunderson Professor (Lucasian Chair) Teacher (Cambridge).Robert Smith Physician, Researcher. Friend, Correspondent.John Byrom Shorthand advocate. Correspondent.James Jurin Physician. Correspondent.John Lister Reverend. Friend, Correspondent.
Stephen Hales Vicar, Chemist, Botanist, etc. Correspondent.Joanna Stephens Purveyor of medicines. Colleague.Joseph Butler. Bishop. Friend, Correspondent.
William Cheseldon Surgeon. Friend, Colleague.Archibald Campbell Professor (St.Andrews). Colleague.
Thomas Bayes Reverend, Mathematician. Friend(?).George Cheyne Physician. Friend.Joseph Priestley Teacher, Dissenter, Chemist. Correspondent. Disciple.Benjamin Rush Physician. Disciple.
Royal Society of London -- Member.Society for the Encouragement
of Learning-- Member.
Society for the Promotionof Christian Knowledge.
-- Member.
3.4.3 Reid
Thomas Reid’s position in the intellectual networks of the eighteenth century
provides for him as solid an identity as natural philosopher as David Hartley’s, but from
quite different sources. Educated, again with a strong basis in the new natural
philosophy, at Aberdeen, he was also exposed to some of the same Cantabrigian thought
as Hartley.79 The vast majority of his later associates, though, come from Scottish
academic and religious circles (which, of course, overlapped significantly in the period in
question). As minister and professor within the official Scottish systems, Reid
78 Biographical information obtained from Hartley [1775/1973], Oberg [1976], Webb[1988], and Allen [1999].79 Biographical weakness here: I am unable to locate confirmation of Reid’s relationshipwith Bentley and Saunderson shown in Table 3.13. I am confident of some connectionbetween Reid and the Cambridge community, but it may be less direct than indicatedhere.
210
participated in an intellectual community that was active in the philosophical debates of
the day.80 Moreover, he was one of the leaders of this community (the ‘fittest man in
Scotland’ for his professorial position at Glasgow) and the founder of a school of thought
within it; he and his personal associates formed an inner circle within the Scottish
intellectual community, significantly influencing its course. Reid’s close attention to the
work of Hume was fostered by his affiliation with the ‘Aberdeen Circle’ or ‘Wise Club’
that met weekly to discuss philosophical issues. Reid – along with his Wise Club
colleagues, Beattie, Gregory, Campbell, and Gerard – considered Hume’s work in detail.
Reid was, of them all, the one who looked most favorably, if critically, on Hume’s
contribution (on the evidence of his texts).
Table 3.13: Figures in Reid’s Intellectual Genealogy81
ASSOCIATED INDIVIDUALor ORGANIZATION OCCUPATION(S) RELATIONSHIP
George Turnbull Professor Teacher (Aberdeen)Thomas Blackwell Professor Teacher (Aberdeen)Richard Bentley Theologian, Professor Teacher? (Cambridge)
Nicholas Saunderson Professor Teacher? (Cambridge)James Beattie Professor Friend, ColleagueJames Gregory Professor Friend, Colleague
George Campbell Professor Friend, ColleagueAlexander Gerard Professor Friend, Colleague
David Gregory Professor Cousin, ColleagueDavid Hume Writer, Statesman Correspondent
Henry Home, Lord Kames Aristocrat, Writer CorrespondentWilliam Ogilvie Professor CorrespondentDugald Stewart Professor Student, Protegé, CorrespondentJames Oswald Minister Friend“Wise Club” -- Member
“Aberdeen Circle” -- Member
80 Contrast with Hume, who tried twice and failed to gain membership in the Scottishacademy.81 Biographical information obtained from Brody [1969], Lehrer [1989], Yolton et al.[1999], and Harris [2003].
211
3.4.4 Brown
Two intellectual generations later than the three figures already surveyed in this
section, Thomas Brown’s patterns of social engagement reflect changes in British culture
between the mid-eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. The student of Reid’s
own student, Dugald Stewart, Brown was educated at Edinburgh (beginning 1792) in a
curriculum that incorporated new chemistry and mathematics in addition to the
philosophical inheritance of the preceding century. Beginning in law but ending in
medicine, Brown then took on a medical practice before entering into academia as
professor of philosophy at his alma mater, replacing Stewart. Brown was also an essayist
and poet, and a prominent early contributor to the prominent Edinburgh Review. He died
of a chronic illness in 1820 at the age of 42.
Brown’s known associates are eclectic in their occupations, but all share a
common relationship to Edinburgh and its university. If anything, Brown’s social circles,
and his own life pattern, suggest diversification of the Scottish intelligentsia; in his own
career, and in his associations with others, he encountered a variety of emerging
specialist enterprises that nonetheless retained a certain coherence through institutional
affiliations – with the University of Edinburgh, with the Edinburgh Review, etc. Among
his teachers, his colleagues, and his students, no other patterns are apparent at first
glance. This, Brown’s short lifespan, and the relative dearth of detailed biographical
information on Brown, make trends in his intellectual genealogy difficult to assess –
Brown’s social identity is, on the evidence of Table 3.14, harder to locate than those of
Hume, Hartley, and Reid.
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Table 3.14: Figures in Brown’s Intellectual Genealogy82
ASSOCIATED INDIVIDUALor ORGANIZATION OCCUPATION(S) RELATIONSHIP
Dugald Stewart Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)James Finlayson Minister, Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)
John Robison Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)John Playfair Professor, Mathematician Teacher (Edinburgh)Joseph Black Professor, Chemist Teacher (Edinburgh)
James Gregory, III Physician MentorJohn Leslie Professor Colleague
Henry, Lord Brougham Aristocrat, Journalist, Politician Friend, ColleagueFrancis Horner Politician, Economist, Journalist. Friend, Colleague
Francis, Lord Jeffrey Lawyer, Critic, Editor. Friend, ColleagueSidney Smith Minister, Writer. Friend, ColleagueJames Reddie Writer. Friend, ColleagueJohn Leyden Orientalist. Friend, ColleagueJohn Erskine Minister, Writer Friend, Colleague
Sir Walter Scott Writer Friend.Sir James Mackintosh Publicist, Politician Friend.
David Welsh Minister, Writer Friend.James McCosh Professor Protegé
J.D. Morell Psychologist Protegé
3.4.5 Mill
James Mill emerged from the same Edinburgh environment as did Brown,
entering the university there some few years prior to him, and having a largely
overlapping set of instructors there. They also shared some associates from this period,
and both participated to a degree in the same Scottish academic-religious community that
Reid had led twenty or thirty years before. Mill briefly took on a parish in the Church of
Scotland, before moving on to work as a writer and civil servant in England. He also
contributed to the Edinburgh Review and maintained relationships with its other
contributors, although there is no evidence that Mill and Brown were directed associated.
From that point the genealogical paths of Mill and Brown diverge, with Mill’s
secular career in London and India drawing him into association, most conspicuously,
82 Biographical information obtained from McCosh [1875], Robinson [1976/1995], andDavie [2001]
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with radical political circles. In this latter half of his life, Mill’s intellectual identity
begins to emerge as distinct, constituted by his relationships with political economists
such as Ricardo, the circle of reform advocates around Jeremy Bentham, and the younger
contemporaries and successors who made up the founding circle of the radical
Westminster Review. On the periphery of these central commitments, the same
professional eclecticism observed among Brown’s colleagues in Edinburgh is evident
among Mill’s in London – chemists, economists, historians, and clergymen all being
represented.
Table 3.15: Figures in Mill’s Intellectual Genealogy83
ASSOCIATED INDIVIDUALor ORGANIZATION OCCUPATION(S) RELATIONSHIP
Dugald Stewart Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)James Finlayson Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)Andrew Dalziel Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)John Robison Professor Teacher (Edinburgh)
Andrew Hunter Professor, Minister Teacher (Edinburgh)Thomas Hardie Professor, Minister Teacher (Edinburgh)Thomas M’Crie Minister Friend
John Leyden Orientalist, Writer FriendThomas Thompson Chemist, Minister FriendSir David Brewster Physicist FriendWilliam Wallace Mathematician, Professor Friend
Henry, Lord Brougham Aristocrat, Politician, Writer FriendGeorge, 7th Marquis of Tweeddale Aristocrat Employer
Jeremy Bentham Writer, Reformer MentorJean-Baptiste Say Economist CorrespondentThomas Ricardo Economist Friend, ColleagueJames Thompson Minister Friend
Robert Bisset Writer FriendJohn Gifford Writer Friend
James Ramsay MacCulloch Economist, Journalist, Professor FriendGeneral Francisco de Miranda Soldier, Revolutionary Friend
William Allen Chemist FriendGeorge Grote Historian, Writer Friend
John Stuart Mill Writer, Economist, Reformer Son, Protegé
83 Biographical information obtained from Bain [1882a], McCosh [1875], Halévy [1955],and Ripoli [1998].
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3.4.6 Hamilton
Perhaps the clearest genealogical position of any figure in this study can be
identified for Sir William Hamilton.84 Son of a professor at the University of Glasgow,
he was taught there himself, followed by periods of study at Edinburgh (medicine) and at
Balliol College, Oxford (classics and philosophy). He then established himself within the
same Scottish university community as professor at Edinburgh, holding several positions
there from 1821 forward. His known personal associates are all academic mentors,
colleagues or students, as shown in Table 3.16. This same table includes also less direct
relationships with a handful of writers – de Quincey, J.S. Mill, Forbes – with whom
Hamilton carried on intellectual rivalries and may have corresponded.
Hamilton nearly complete absorption within a professional academic community
is singular among my set of subjects – being most closely mirrored by Reid, founder of
the school of which Hamilton was the last significant figure. This insular identity as
‘professor of philosophy’, in parallel with patterns also observed in Hamilton’s iconic,
conceptual, and textual structures is perhaps indicative of the onset of disciplinary
character in the pursuit of philosophy. That is, indicators in several structural regimes
seem to identify Hamilton as singular within my selected group, and suggest further work
on his career would generate interesting results. However, at present, Hamilton’s
biographical details are also among the murkiest in this group, and further study on this
subject is required. I suggest, though, that more study of Hamilton’s career in Scottish
education would illuminate the divergence of science and philosophy in nineteenth
century Britain – with Hamilton emerging as a prime exemplar of philosophy as
emerging professionalized discipline.
84 Note in clarification: There have been many William Hamiltons participating in Britishintellectual culture over the past several centuries. Our subject – Sir William Hamilton,9th Baronet of Preston and Professor at the University of Edinburgh [1788-1856] – mustbe distinguished especially from his near contemporary, the Irish mathematician anddeveloper of the quaternion nomenclature, William Rowan Hamilton [1805-1865].
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Table 3.16: Figures in Hamilton’s Intellectual Genealogy85
ASSOCIATED INDIVIDUALor ORGANIZATION OCCUPATION(S) RELATIONSHIP
Thomas Hamilton Professor, Physician FatherGeorge Jardine Professor Teacher (Glasgow)James Mylne Minister, Professor Teacher (Glasgow)
Dugald Stewart Professor ColleagueJames Ferrier Professor Colleague
Thomas de Quincey Writer Commentator, Friend?John Stuart Mill Writer, Economist, Reformer Commentator
J.D. Forbes Professor CommentatorJohn Stuart Blackie Professor Colleague
Duncan Gregory Professor ColleagueRobert Selkirk Scott Professor Protegé, Assistant
Thomas Spencer Baynes Professor Protegé, AssistantHenry Longueville Mansel Minister, Philosopher Protegé, Editor
Henry Calderwood Minister, Philosopher ProtegéJohn Veitch Professor Editor
James Clerk Maxwell Physicist Student
3.4.7 Bain
If Hamilton’s genealogical position falls squarely within the boundaries of
academic philosophy, Alexander Bain’s suggests a much more complicated trajectory.
His educational background in Aberdeen was split between Marischal College and the
city’s Mechanic’s Institute.86 His early career as writer in London placed him in the
radical circles of John Stuart Mill and Neil Arnott - and in the pages of the Westminster
Review – in the 1840’s. Later, as professor at Aberdeen, he became a central figure in
Scottish education, and founded the journal, Mind. His known associates are a typically
eclectic assortment similar to those of Thomas Brown or James Mill in the previous
generation. Conspicuous among them, though, are a small group of medical practitioners
– Sharpey, Carpenter, Kay-Shuttleworth – on whom Bain would rely for physiological
85 Biographical information obtained from McCosh [1875], Madden [1985], Davie[1961], and Davie [2001].86 Marischal later merged with King’s College to form the University of Aberdeen. It isunclear whether Bain attended lectures also at King’s in his collegiate career. In additionto the direct connections established in Table 3.17, Bain was also exposed to the lecturesof Sir William Hamilton in 1841, but apparently heard them delivered by an (unnamed)deputy. [Flesher, 1986, p.69]
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expertise in his major works (see also Tables 3.9 and 3.10). This kind of personal
influence on how the study of mind was intellectually situated recapitulates a pattern we
have seen evident since we began the discussion with Hume at the beginning of this
section.
Table 3.17: Figures in Bain’s Intellectual Genealogy87
ASSOCIATED INDIVIDUALor ORGANIZATION OCCUPATION(S) RELATIONSHIP
Dr. Cruikshank Professor Teacher (Marischal)William Knight Professor Teacher (Aberdeen Mech. Inst.)
Principal Tulloch Professor Teacher (Marischal)George Glennie Professor Teacher (Marischal)Allen Thomson Professor Teacher (Aberdeen)Thomas Clark Professor Teacher (Aberdeen)David Masson Minister FriendJohn Robertson Journalist FriendJohn Stuart Mill Writer, Economist, Reformer Friend, Colleague
Neil Arnott Physician, Reformer FriendGeorge Henry Lewes Writer Friend
William Sharpey Anatomist FriendGeorge Lilles Craik Writer Friend
James Kay-Shuttleworth Physician, Reformer FriendEdwin Chadwick Lawyer, Journalist, Reformer Friend
George Grote Historian Friend, ColleagueAuguste Comte Sociologist Correspondent
William Carpenter Physiologist ColleagueSydney Smith Minister, Journalist FriendRichard Owen Naturalist Friend
Herbert Spencer Sociologist ColleagueGeorge Croom Robertson Professor, Editor Protegé, Colleague
Aberdeen Philosophy Society -- Member
87 Biographical information obtained from Bain [1904], Robinson [1977b], and Flesher[1986].
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3.4.8 Synopsis
In beginning to piece together a depiction of the social milieus in which each of
my subjects moved, attention to genealogical structure has suggested a significant
interaction of personal intellectual associations and other structural variables –
conceptual, expository, and iconic. Here, we begin to identify mechanisms of knowledge
transfer, social influences on content, overlap between personal and intellectual
affiliations, and situated identities of the figures under examination. I have argued that
the cross-comparison of this element of intellectual structure with the others in this study
can reveal patterns of synergy and interference, thereby strengthening our understanding
of the mutual influence of the social on the intellectual. Such interactions among
structural elements will be explored further in the next section, which offers a cursory
case study of the influence of editorial practice on the propagation of conceptual systems.
I have also tried to cast light on what I take to be a flaw in the methodology
Collins [1999] proposes for the identification of key figures in intellectual networks.
Collins suggests that an identity as a ‘major philosopher’ can be discerned by locating
figures whose position in such networks forms a high-order nodes (a site with many
connections). I take it that Rorty’s objection of question-begging (see section 2.4.2)
applies to this model, because the figures connected in his networks are only those
already assumed to be relevant thinkers. That is, Collins assumes his outcome in
constituting his data set. Furthermore, I think he makes an insufficient distinction
between the interacting networks formed by ‘fictive’ iconic structure and ‘actual’
genealogical structure. As a reductio of Collins’ method, I submit that the networks of
personal interaction outlined in this section demonstrate not only that every figure can be
considered as representing a high-order node within an intellectual community (or
communities), but also that the input of figures Collins would exclude (interactions of a
philosopher with an anatomist, for example) have clear relevance for the work being
done. If the primary weakness of this section is a lack of comprehensive biographical
detail, then a bolstering of the available evidence would only serve to make this point
more clear.
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3.5 Texts versus Concepts: Editorial Modifications of Hartley and Mill
Section 3.1 treated conceptual systems as free-standing structures, while section
3.2 showed this analysis to be problematic on account of the embeddedness of concepts
within texts. Subsequent sections have added elements of claimed and actual intellectual
heritage to this mixture, and have emphasized the patterns of interaction that emerge from
examining these several structural elements as an emsemble. This section will offer a
miniature case study of the interaction of texts and concepts by considering the
conceptual changes introduced by new editions of Hartley’s Observations and Mill’s
Analysis. Hartley’s work was published in a second edition, edited by Joseph Priestley,
in 1775. This later edition is the one that was most influential and became the ‘standard’
version, serving as a catalyst to the thought of Coleridge and James Mill among others.
James Mill’s own work was later re-edited by his son, John Stuart Mill, and a team of the
younger Mill’s associates including Alexander Bain. This 1869 edition of the Analysis
attempted to reposition the arguments of the original in light of new information and new
institutional circumstances. Both these editorial interventions demonstrate the difficulty
of locating a conceptual system outside a broader intellectual tradition. Each shows a
different pattern of interaction between concepts and their exposition. I take these to be
only particularly striking examples of a general phenomenon also relevant to Hume’s
different expositions of the science of man, Reid’s various concatenated works, Bain’s
1870 abridgement of his earlier two-volume treatise, and the many (usually quite similar)
multiple editions of Brown, Hamilton, et al., that were disseminated in English-speaking
schools throughout the nineteenth century.
Priestley, as editor of Hartley’s system, excised many of both the religious and the
mechanistic affinities of the work, rendering it much more akin to Hume’s Treatise than
it was in original form. The second book of the Observations, treating duty and revealed
religion, was eliminated entirely from Priestley’s edition. Also, the theory of vibrations
and vibratiuncles was curtailed, and different references inserted. Priestley himself
appended three essays to the 1775 edition, updating details of – respectively - the
doctrine of vibrations, the doctrine of association, and the theory of complex and abstract
ideas. The end result of these alterations was to reduce the length by some two-thirds; to
divorce the theory of associations from the mechanism Hartley found necessary to it; and
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to (partially) secularize the overall appearance of Hartley’s work. Furthermore, the
greater circulation of the later edition complicates the identification of one singular
‘Hartleyan conceptual structure’; while the system of the 1748 edition (as detailed in
section 3.1.2) was the one actually espoused by Hartley, that remaining in the 1775
edition was the one most likely to be read – and cited – by Hartley’s nineteenth century
commentators.
The process of textual modification in the 1869 edition to Mill’s Analysis
proceeded by a different pattern. Leaving the original text complete, the younger Mill
and his associates instead remodeled the work by addition, contributing a preface,
footnotes, and addenda (amounting to an extension of the original text by about 25% in
length). A complete breakdown of the resulting modifications is impossible here, but
even a brief survey indicates differences in conceptual and iconic structure.
In the first vein, we find many proposed changes to the elder Mill’s original
conceptual scheme in the second edition, usually characterized as stemming from
information made available since the 1829 version appeared. While the added notes to
this effect do not elide the original formulation, they contradict its authority directly – the
1869 version is very much more a critical edition than a reprinting of the earlier one. For
example, J.S. Mill – himself the author of a putatively comprehensive logical system –
disagreed with his father that the process of ratiocination can be identified with the
structure of the Aristotelian syllogism; instead, he offers the view that reasoning is simply
a belief in the truth of a given proposition, based on evidential considerations rather than
formal linguistic ones. [J.S. Mill in J. Mill, 1868, v.1., p.426 n.] Similar questioning and
correction of the text appears throughout the later edition, making the discussion of
concepts in section 3.1.5 very much dependent on reference to the original text.
The set of icons deployed by J.S. Mill, as primary editor of the 1868 edition,
suggests a process of synthesis also evident in the elder Mill’s work. The editorial
preface to this second edition pays homage to Thomas Brown as offering significant
previous advances in the field of mental analysis. Brown of course, as we have seen,
emerged from the Common Sense tradition to provide an alternate model of the mind that
reinserted the Associationist basis developed by Hume and Hartley. While the younger
Mill here traces this basic notion to a genesis in Aristotle, with Hobbes and Locke as
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early modern elaborators, the credit for the formal principle of association is given to
Hartley and his mentor, John Gay. Mill characterizes Hume as having effectively
usurped the mantle of associationism from these two, with little of his own to contribute.
The Hartleyan tradition is traced through Joseph Priestley and Erasmus Darwin to Brown,
who J.S. Mill treats – despite Brown’s overall importance in the field – as having given a
superficial examination of Hartley. The editor attributes the full resuscitation of Hartley
to his father, the “second founder” of Associationism. The project established by the
1828 Analysis has, in this story, been forwarded in the intervening four decades by Bain
and Herbert Spencer, to the point where the true significance of the elder Mill – and
through him, Hartley – can now be fully understood. It is this state of affairs, says J.S.
Mill, that has demanded a new edition of the Analysis in 1868, and which explains the
contributions offered by the editorial team. He himself, along with Bain as a
psychological specialist, will offer clarifications of theoretical points, while their
colleagues George Grote and Andrew Findlater will contribute other focused
commentary. Grote, the historian of ancient Greece, adds notes on classical history and
philosophy, while Findlater’s role is to correct the philology of the first edition, which
relied on the outdated interpretations of the linguist Horne Tooke.
While the elder Mill advertised that his treatment of the senses would proceed
according to their relative simplicity and familiarity, Bain notes that leading off with the
sense of smell offers the added benefit of having a “startling effect” on the reader. [Bain
in Mill, 1868, v.1, p.7 n.]88 Bain further counters Mill’s suggestion that the order of
treatment is entirely immaterial, stating that this is “not a matter of indifference.” [ibid]
He supports this claim by an exposition of two possible hierarchical systems of the
senses, one according to their “intellectuality” and the other treating them as “specialised
modifications of touch.” [Bain in Mill, 1868, v.1., pp.3-6 n] These rankings reflect not
only Bain’s opinion of the importance of establishing a proper ordering, but also Bain’s
(rather than Mill’s) understanding of the inventory of the senses. Thus, the former,
intellectual, hierarchy proceeds as: (1) Organic sensibility; (2) Taste; (3) Smell; (4)
88 James Mill, too, invests little in defending his organization, saying that the order ofexplication is “immaterial” to the problem at hand. Bain disagrees, and proceeds to forman argument to that effect.
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Touch; (5) Hearing; (6) Sight. The latter hierarchy of tactile specialization is offered in
two possible orders, with the ambiguity stemming from uncertainty in the material
mechanism of sight. Thus, we might treat these either as: (1) Touch; (2) Hearing; (3)
Sight; (4) Taste; (5) Smell; (6) Organic sensibility or (1) Touch; (2) Hearing; (3) Taste;
(4) Smell; (5) Organic sensibility; (6) Sight. In any case, Bain suggests here that Mill has
not only missed the fundamental significance of such ordering, but has performed his
ranking in a way that is more rhetorically effective than scientifically applicable.
Overall, the effect of both the 1775 edition of Hartley (modified by Priestley), and
the 1869 edition of James Mill (modified by J.S. Mill et al.) is to bring the work in line
with current understandings and practices. In other words, as a bottom line, both second
editions render the original more reliable, more au courant, and more ‘scientific.’ As
such they constitute part of the process of disciplinary differentiation that I will address in
the next chapter.
3.6 Overview
If I have been successful, this chapter has formulated a significant historical
problematic – identifying salient aspects of classical British mental inquiry by
investigation of four interacting structural dimensions. This development has its basis in
a set of questions and historiographic perspectives laid out in chapter 2. Here, it will be
useful to recap some of the important results of the present lengthy chapter and indicate
some connections back to this historiographic foundation. These, I believe, justify my
initial instinct – noted in chapter 1 – that the tradition I have been studying is, at present,
poorly understood and deserves further attention in STS.
Beginning with that instinct, I have maintained a fairly high level of abstraction in
this initial survey. Rather than focus immediately upon individual historical details –
particular argumentative controversies or closely-situated sequences of events – I have
opted to take a broader, more structural view, to examine possibly persistent contextual
affinities of the mental scientific enterprise. Thus, my contribution here is not, in any
sense, a replacement for the standard methods of philosophy and history of science, but is
rather complementary to them. The questions raised in the previous chapter require
reference to the sort of structural concerns laid out in my development above, as I have
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attempted to show already in the synopses that have ended each section (see 3.1.8, 3.2.8,
3.3.8, and 3.4.8). At the same time, my level of analysis cannot help but miss some of
the contingencies that would emerge from more focused investigation of episodes within
the problematic I have outlined. To take one example, exclusion of the details of
philosophical argumentation allows for the possibility of similar conceptual structures
with greatly distinct argumentative bases. This, for example, is the case with Reid and
Hamilton. Hamilton’s conceptual system falls squarely within the Reidian tradition,
while his justifications of this commitment are much more closely akin to German
idealism than to previous figures of the Common Sense school. Such differences cannot
be made evident within the analytical scheme I have developed here. In the following
summary, I will try to keep track of such limitations of my work alongside the modest
advances that I have made in sketching the nineteenth century problematic of mental
studies.
The first four sections of this chapter described a set of four interacting structural
elements making constitutive contributions to inquiry into the mind in my study.
Elaboration of the first component – conceptual structure – involved looking for common
intellectual traditions, communities of discussion, around identifiable sets of understood
terms. I compared, in particular, the early nineteenth century work to the eighteenth
century antecedents on which it built. Interesting commonalities emerged between all of
the earlier works – those of Hume, Hartley, and Reid – in terms of concepts including
simplicity, artificiality, intensity, and activity. The later work of Brown, Mill, Hamilton,
and Bain began to indicate a transition in the nineteenth century toward a new structuring
concept cluster involving notions of temporality, dynamism, and practice. On the whole,
though, this transition proceeded by an incremental reorientation of existing concepts
rather than by either injection of new ones or wholesale structural revolution. A rich set
of concepts in flux during the period was identified in section 3.1.8, including the
position of religion, physiology, and language with respect to the study of mind. For
instance, the inclusion of language as a philosophical topic introduced by the social
production of knowledge is a persistent feature of inquiry into the mind, missing only
from the work of Hume and Bain (who nonetheless leave a space for such discussion in
their structures). This interest in language, though, ranged from Hartley’s advocacy of
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Byrom’s universal shorthand through Reid’s discussion of expression versus signification
to Mill’s attention to grammar and etymology and Hamilton’s proclivity for
terminological systematicity. Thus, while language was a constant partner in mental
inquiry, its specific relevance was fluid. The relative stabilities of such recurring
concepts within the intellectual tradition as a whole is a matter for further study.
My development in section 3.2 indicated a number of important issues in the
domain of textual structure. We saw how the transmission of concepts of the mind in
eighteenth and nineteenth century texts was influenced by changes in the audience both
over time and between contexts. The evolution of the reading public, and their habits of
reading, was significant in the development of the written tradition of inquiry into the
mind. So was the distinction between oral lectures on the subject to a university audience
and more broadly distributed written works for the popular market. We also saw the
complexity of matching up texts with conceptual systems: Multiple treatments of the
same subject by the same author, editorial shifts, dispersion of conceptual systems
through several discrete texts, and the situation of texts within an author’s body of work
as a whole can all confound the definitive identification of a particular contributors
conceptual system. Yet, while introducing these complications, texts also offer a clear
window into other aspects of the propagation of intellectual traditions – issues of style,
conventional development, and the envisioned scope of a given project. While I have not
been able to pursue these latter concerns in the present work, I have attempted to indicate
some general trends in the written plans of the texts considered. These suggest a high
enough degree of continuity to warrant further study.
This indication is strengthened by the evidence in section 3.3 on the evolution of
iconic structure within these selected texts. That section presented extensive data on
patterns of reference in the work of my seven subjects. Some of the interesting trends
that emerged here involve changes in the density and character of such references over
the period in question. In a possible indication of increasing disciplinarity, citation
appears to become more frequent and more specific as we move deeper into the
nineteenth century. The content of references also changes over time, with gestural
identifications of icons with general positions giving way to extensive excerpting later.
At the same time, who the various iconic referents are in each work is important to keep
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in mind as well. The historiographic development in chapter 2 indicated that science and
philosophy might be distinguished (in part) by tendencies toward, respectively, presentist
and originary referentiality.89 Other aspects of iconic structure, alluded to in this chapter
but not fully developed, include trends in the positive or negative valence of citation, and
the connection of particular icons with specific communities or personal associations –
fictive or actual affiliations between cited authorities and the author of the text and his
audience.
Some of these last issues are made more clear in section 3.4, where patterns of
intellectual genealogy are introduced. This first glance at networks of personal
intellectual affiliation not only shows significant correlations between personal
relationship and textual citation, but also helps to position the study of mind within the
larger community. By examining the productive direct associations of each of my
subjects with various individuals and organizations, I have been able to locate them
according to their apparent social roles within specific subcommunities – political,
religious, academic, etc. When these are further situated as part of a larger evolving
British culture, we begin to understand the role played by the study of mind as social
activity. The explicit distinction of these real-world relationships from the fictive ones
set up by iconic citation allows for an assessment of cross-talk between the two regimes.
This analysis has also indicated some significant problems with existing network models
of philosophical traditions, such as that of Collins [1999]; Collins’ work appears to rely
alternately on conflation of real and fictive relationships, and on the circumscription of
the network within an already assumed relevant community of discussion.
Nonetheless, direct intellectual genealogy and acknowledged icons, even in
combination, still exclude actual intellectual influences not made explicit by the author.
This can include both indirect influences transmitted through third parties (such as the
Newtonianism expounded by the Rankenian Club to Hume and his classmates at
Edinburgh) and direct influences of works read, but not cited, by authors (such as the
thought of Bayle, Cudworth, Dubos, Fénelon, and King absorbed, but not mentioned, by
89 This is Macintyre’s suggestion in section 2.2.4: Science refers only to its immediatepast, if any past at all, erasing the longer term development of the conceptual system(‘presentist’), while philosophy points back over the course of its history to perennialfoundational concerns and wisdom (‘originary’).
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Hume).90 Both these types of intellectual communication require the resources of close
biography to emerge.
Lastly, in section 3.5, I explored further evidence of interaction among my four
structural elements. This section developed a brief case study of editorial practices and
their role in incremental conceptual change. I showed how nineteenth century British
inquiry into the mind reflected upon, and modulated, its own past by re-sculpting the
texts in its own canon to suit dynamically changing goals. The modifications wrought
upon Hartley’s and Mill’s conceptual schemes by their latter-day editors demonstrate the
fundamental flexibility of texts as conduits for the transmission of ideas.
Next, in chapter 4, I will delve into a more extensive case study within the
historical problematic described here. Focusing in on the critical concept pair of
‘science’ and ‘philosophy’, I will trace changes in their relationship within this tradition
to show how the enterprise of mental inquiry itself shaped and enforced this distinction.
90 Hume’s reception of Newtonianism through his instructors at Edinburgh, and hisindependent reading of Bayle, et al., are both documented in Mossner [1980].